Contact: Ceri Usmar
HGX Creative
441 Salem End Road
Framingham, MA 01702
P: 508.405.4506
E: Ceri@hgxinc.com

Fort Lauderdale, FL – June, 2006 – La Ciudad del Nino La Chureca (The City of the Children of the Garbage) is excited to launch their first major fund-raising drive since the mission’s 2004 inception. The venture will initially raise $300,000 to complete a community center and will have ongoing efforts to support and supply the center through regular aids missions to the area.

“Thanks to Holy Cross Hospital allocations, we’ve been able to make 39 mission trips to Nicaragua,” says Dr. Edward Coopersmith, a doctor of pulmonary medicine at Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, whose calling to help Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch devastated the area in 2000 resulted in this mission. “This community center will allow us to reach those in need on a daily rather than a sporadic basis, and make a far greater impact on far more people.”

There are currently hundreds of children eking out an existence on the trash heaps outside the city of Managua, Nicaragua. Living on the outskirts of poor cities, removed from educational and other resources, they know only abuse and addiction, and long days scouring the dumps for trifles that might raise the equivalent of a few pennies. Without an alternative means of survival, most will never leave the dump, perpetuating a generational cycle of “dump dwellers.” The community center seeks to stop this cycle with a two-fold mission: to supply the children’s everyday medical, educational and nutritional needs; and to teach them a trade that will provide them a productive way of earning a living away from the filth and desperation of the dumps.

“Once I’d seen the plight of these kids I couldn’t come home to my ‘lucky life’ in the US and do nothing,” says Debbie Nierman, founder and CEO of HGX. “I will definitely be returning to help, but in the meantime I’m honored to have the trust of this mission to publicize their efforts and help raise funds that will not just improve lives but save them.”

HGX Creative is a full-service marketing and design company serving clients ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies from locations in Boston and Fort Lauderdale. The company’s most recent awards include the 2006 PPAI Bronze Award for Outstanding Use of Promotional Products and a 2006 American Graphic Design Award for web design.