Grupo Pro Sayulita, A.C. is a duly registered and federally recognized Mexican non-profit association formed by concerned citizens, both local and foreign, to represent the needs of Sayulita.

We ar a non-political association committed to enriching the quality of life in our town. We represent the town’s interests while working with the Government to secure funding for local improvements based on Sayulita’s needs and priorities.

Our vision is to bring together the Sayulita community and to recognize and preserve the benefits of its cultural and ecological diversity while improving the quality of life in Sayulita.

Due to the relative newness of our association, how we accomplish our goals is constantly evolving.

Nevertheless, we've discovered that some things work better than others. For example, we've found that what doesn’t work is for group leadership to take on all the issues and projects to try and accomplish everything. This severely limits our possibilities and doesn't acknowledge Sayulita volunteers who have a multitude of talents and interests. We found that the way to get a number of important projects accomplished simultaneously is for individuals, who have special interests or skills, to volunteer as project leaders or team members.
 
When a problem is identified or a good idea for a project is brought up at one of our weekly meetings, we ask for volunteers to serve on a committee to explore ways to solve the problem or advance the project. The individual committee selects a committee leader who reports back to GPS at our weekly meetings.

At the weekly meetings we find creative ways to support the committees. Support could be in the form of direct funding, help in presenting proposals to appropriate authorities or just help in clarifying the issue.
 
Through our successes we now have reputation for keeping our commitments to the community and our partners in government.  Grupo Pro Sayulita’s assistance can be a great help in completing a successful project!

Public School Assistance:

• The floors in one of the schools are over 30 years old and crumbling
• There are no stairs to the classrooms so when it rains the children must slip and slide to make it to school
• The wiring is sub-par
• The toilets can only be flushed by the children pouring water (manually) into them
• There are no knobs on the bathroom faucets

Despite the poor shape of these schools, the children of Sayulita want to go to school AND we need to ensure that they receive a good education, not only for their futures but also the future of Sayulita!

Right now, Grupo Pro Sayulita is forming a committee to understand how we can effectively support our schools.  If you're interested in joining this committee, please attend our next meeting or email us.

Sayulita Public Bathrooms:
    
The Sayulita Public Bathrooms project was initiated by Grupo Pro Sayulita to address the lack of public restrooms. The project, which was managed by Ken Dahle and Marcos Scott, was completed in time to open for Semana Santa 2009.

The bathrooms are open daily from approximately 5:00 am to 8:00 pm. Users are charged a minimal 5 pesos to use a clean, well cared for facility. The bathrooms are located next to the baseball field.

Funding for the restrooms was provided from your generous donations to the sewage treatment plant. A special THANK YOU to Jack & Patty Clenaghen for donating 5 toilets for this project.

Sayulita's Waste Water Treatment Plant is a Major Success!

In late 2005, after years of pleading from the people of Sayulita and a concentrated effort on the part of Lazaro Cardenas, (the head of our local water system), the Municipio Bahia de Banderas and Nayarit's State Government announced a plan to replace Sayulita's failing Sewage Treatment facility with a new "state of the art" facility.
 
In Mexico, individual towns are generally required to contribute a percentage of the cost of infrastructure improvements and in this case we were told that Sayulita would need to contribute about 12.5% of the cost. It was estimated that the cost of a new plant would be about $850,000 to $900,000 USD, meaning that the pueblo would need to come up with around $100,000 USD to get the project started.

In March of 2006, an event was held at Don Pedro's Las Brisas event center in Sayulita to raise funds for this project.  Through your contributions, we raised about $110,000 USD to cover Sayulita's contribution to the project.

Before plant construction was initiated in June of 2006, we became aware of Federal funding available for projects of this type. Through efforts of Sayulita's water company, headed by Lazaro Cardenas and both Municipal and State governments, impressing upon the Federal Government the importance of this project to Mexico's tourist industry, this Federal money was applied to fully fund our project. In order to qualify for this Federal money, we had to agree to maintain the plant within optimum operating parameters for a minimum of 10 years or the Municipality must repay 50% of these funds to the Federation.

The money we raised to fund Sayulita's percentage of the project was put into an interest bearing account at A. W. Lloyd to be used for future sanitation related investments to our town.

Sayulita's local water authority took over the management of the plant in February 2007 and on March 30, 2007, Sayulita's WWTP was inaugurated by Nayarit's Governor, Ney Gonzalez.

After running the plant for a time, Lazaro became aware of some deficiencies. The plant had only three aerators and one was to be used as a back up. This was not giving us sufficient aeration to obtain the level of purity we needed. Lazaro determined that we would need to add 3 additional aerators and requested that Grupo Pro Sayulita (GPS) fund these.

GPS arranged to purchase these directly from Nabohi, the manufacturer in Toluca. As a result, we now have a state of the art WWTP which exceeds the original design expectations. According to Lazaro Cardenas, the Director of the Water and Sewer operations for the Municipality and head of our local water company, we have the cleanest treated water in the region.

We consider this project a major success for Sayulita! As we determine projects that fall under sanitation requirements, they will be funded from our WWTP fund.

Roads & Dust Control:

When our project "Sayulimpia" was formed in the Spring of 2007, one of our stated goals was to lower the level of dust in our pueblo. We focused on three main tactics to try achieve this goal.

First, is our continuing relationship  with the Municipality of Bahia de Banderas, soliciting cobble stoning projects for Sayulita. We worked with local members of the Sayulita community to help prioritize the roads to cobble and use our cooperative  relationship with the Municipality to help guarantee our towns contribution to each project and manage the agreements between Sayulita and MBB.

In addition, we were able to negotiate an agreement with the Municipality to accept our 40k USD investment on the cleanup of the Tejerias Creek (which runs past Don Pedro's) as part of Sayulita's participation in the cobbling of Calle Revolucion, plus one cobbling project to be completed later this season.

We also contributed 20,000 pesos towards the cobbling of Calle Gaviotas above Calle Jose Mariscal (across from El Tacorriendo) which was the last major dirt road that washed large quantities of mud onto Calle Revolucion on the town side of the river.

Second, we bought a 3.5 T Dodge truck with a generous donation from Walter Staudinger, and fitted it with a tank, pump and sprinkler to wash down cobbled streets, water dirt streets with treated water to keep dust in check and water plants.

Third, we are continuing to look into the use of ecologically friendly dust control agents, which could be sprayed on dirt streets to keep dust from forming as another interim solution to the problem. We still believe that this could be a viable solution in areas with dirt roads but will need a better funding capacity to be able to do it. Since this phase of our 2007 project is, as yet, not funded we urge all homeowners, full and part time residents, to dig deeply to help fund this essential, quality of life issue.

Tejerias Creek Clean-up:
 
In 2006/2007, Grupo Pro Sayulita funded a total of 410,000 pesos for the clean-up of Tejerias creek (the creek that runs past Don Pedro's to the ocean).

At the same time, a new sewer line was installed to run below the creek. This sewer line connects to the WWTP and includes hook up of the homes on Niños Heroes that were below grade.

Prior to this project, these homes were discharging waste and grey water directly into the creek causing environmental issues and health problems for locals and visitors.

This is a major success story as the beach and ocean was the final destination for Tejerias. Because of the scope of this project, it qualified for funding from our WWTP account.

Without your generous donations we wouldn't have been able to initiate and finish the Tejerias Creek project so quickly!

Our weekly meetings are on Wednesdays at 12:00 Noon at Calypso's located at Av. del Palmar 160 in Sayulita. Everyone is welcome to attend, listen and give ideas or volunteer.

Join GPS: Your Membership Helps our Community
 
We want as many residents as possible to become supporting members of Grupo Pro Sayulita. We hope you will continue to support us in future years. Our mission is to make Sayulita a better place to live and visit.

To become a Grupo Pro Sayulita Supporting Member choose the Membership option here.

Volunteers:
    
Give the gift of yourself and help us make Sayulita a better place to live and visit.

Grupo Pro Sayulita can use your skills and you'll have a great time making new friends while truly making a difference.

Our largest group of volunteers, over 25, are working on projects like recycling, public bathrooms, security and a cultural center that will support and promote town events.

Although some of you may only be here for a short while or for a season, we always need help with our fundraising efforts as well as project management, clerical assistance, maintaining our Grupo Pro Sayulita website and working with our project leaders on a whole host of activities.

Give it some thought and if you're interested, attend our next Grupo Pro Sayulita meeting or email us.

No time to volunteer? You can still make a difference by donating to Grupo Pro Sayulita. It's easy with our new PayPal option.

Donations:

Make a donation using PayPal or by one of the other methods listed below.

Donate securely online with PayPal. You do not need an account to donate with a credit card.
 
By Bank Deposit / Transfer
If you'd like to donate to Grupo Pro Sayulita, you can transfer funds from any Mexican Bank to HSBC.  Below is the information you'll need.
 
Within Mexico
Bank Name: Banco HSBC Mexico, S.A.
Account Number: 4041356908
Account Name: Grupo Pro Sayulita, A.C.
 
Wire from Outside of Mexico
Swift Identifier Code: BIMEMXMM
Bank Name: Banco HSBC Mexico, S.A.
Bank Address: Av. Heroes de Nacozari No. 83, Col. Buenos Aires, Bucerias, Bahia de Banderas, Nayarit, Mexico
Clabe: 021560040413569086
Account Number: 4041356908
Account Name: Grupo Pro Sayulita, A.C.
 
If you have any questions about the process please contact us.

For a receipt, please email us with the date the transfer was made, the amount of the transfer and the transaction number.
 
In Person:

Drop off your donation at any weekly Grupo Pro Sayulita meeting.