February 18th, 2010
After all the donations from central Florida were picked up in Barranquilla on February 15th, 2010, they were taken to my family's home in Turbaco, Bolivar where I began to prepare all the donations for the distribution. Every night, for the week that I was in Colombia prior to my distribution (February 13-18), I was organizing the donations for the people of El Talon with the help of all my family. My family stayed up with me for many hours just to help me with my donations. We organized them by using the July 2009 census that I had from July 2009. Every family recorded in the census had every family member's size of shoes, shirts, and pants...as well as their ages and gender. The bags that the donations were put in were black for a specific reason: we did not want anybody in El Talon seeing through the bag to avoid conflicts. We packed clothes for over 600 residents, and as mentioned, it took four nights to pack them all.
During the day
When I wasn't packing donations with my family, I was planning and organizing my distribution event. During the day, I spent most of my time in Cartagena; I had to get my Beyond the Wall distribution day poster custom made, I was interviewed by El Universal and RCN News, and many more preparation errands. As of Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 4 PM, my distribution was scheduled to be on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 10 AM. In fact, Miss Colombia 2010, Natalia Navarro Galvis, had made a video for me supporting my distribution and apologizing for not being able to go that day due to her busy schedule. However, that quickly changed when I had to go to the Miss Colombia Organization headquarters (Concurso Nacional de Belleza), and I met up with the President of the organization, Raimundo Angulo Pizarro. He confirmed that Miss Colombia and the first runner up, Leydi Viviana Gomez, would be able to attend my event, but on Friday, February 19th, 2010. This immediately changed all of my plans, since I had one day less to prepare for my event. Of course, I accepeted the fact that the beauty queens would be able to participate in my event, and I began to prepare for the distribution at a faster pace. Every evening in Turbaco, before I began organizing the donations, I was organizing security with the Colombian National Police in Turbaco. At the police station, most of the officers knew me, so they were all very cool. I also had to organize everything with the Colombian Civil Defense, who are located near the police station. When I entered the Civil Defense headquarters in Turbaco, they had pictures at the entrance of my last event in July 2009. They all greeted me with an applause and with much respect. After many hectic days, I was finally ready for my distribution by Thursday night (February 18th, 2010).
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