'Calendar Girls' fundraising plan backfires in Spain

One of the photos shows the mothers with discreetly placed Christmas tinsel as their only garb. Other goofy poses include a shotgun-toting mom wearing only a fox pelt, and another covering her body with a red umbrella.

The calendars came out in November and at first were a big hit. But the plan fizzled.

The women acknowledge being amateurs in publishing and advertising, and they missed the Christmas shopping rush. Now, sales of the $8 calendar have dried up and they owe a printer nearly $16,000.

"The sad part for us is figuring out what to do with them because it is not something you can recycle," said Rosa Garin, 36, one of the models in Serradilla del Arroyo, a village of 400 people in northern Salamanca province.

The hamlet is a snapshot of rural Spain: quaint but graying, with retirees accounting for 75 percent of the population. The arrival of a new family with children is greeted like manna from heaven. Funding for services is scant.

Its elementary school has one classroom and one teacher who handles its seven pupils ranging in age from 7 to 11. But it is so cramped that the village matrons came up with the idea of building a recreation center for their kids.

Their goal was to offset what they call government neglect.

"Nobody remembers the villages. Everybody comes and says, 'Wow, this is so pretty, what lovely countryside, you live so well here,' but then they don't help you at all. They give you absolutely nothing," said Itziar Zamarreno, a 40-year-old town councilor who posed for the calendar.

Among other pictures, she appears as Miss October, covered only with fox fur and holding a borrowed shotgun a tribute to the popularity of hunting in the area.