COAR

Leading the Way in El Salvador: Foster Care Must Adapt to Realities on the Ground

COAR and our generous donors have always responded to the needs of the poor, neglected and at-risk children of El Salvador.  In the 1980s, COAR grew organically out of the reality.  With the Salvadoran civil war raging in the countryside, war orphans were appearing daily at the Church in Zaragoza on the outskirts of San […]

Christmas Piñata Party 2015

Each December, some of the COAR kids are able to connect with distant relatives so that they can spend the holidays with family.  The Courts must conduct background investigations of these families to ensure the safety of the children but if approved, we are very happy to see the kids spend the holidays with their […]

Pre-Christmas treat: COAR kids visit a local circus

Each November, the academic year slowly comes to a halt about the same time that we in the USA celebrate Thanksgiving – but, Thanksgiving is a distinctly US tradition.  In El Salvador, high schools hold graduation ceremonies and the kids say goodbye to their teachers and friends for a couple of months.  Since the Salvadoran […]

Posadas: A great Latin American Christmas tradition

Are your childhood Christmas memories some of your fondest memories?  As adults, do you remember those traditions with such an air of nostalgia?  Well, COAR Children’s Village is keeping one 400 year old Latin American tradition alive:  The Christmas Posadas.     The term Posada is one of many Spanish words for “inn” and it […]

Kindergarten & High School Graduation 2015

The COAR family is proud to announce the graduation of three of our long time residents:  Juan Carlos, Ingrid and Yesenia.  All three of these young adults are talented, caring, hardworking and dependable.  It is always sad to say goodbye to kids at graduation but we all know that everyone needs to leave the nest […]

Two great new workshops: Dress Making & Handicrafts

Anyone with teenagers knows that kids are not always “motivated” by the intrinsic joy of traditional academics. Now, COAR offers several wonderful semester long workshops designed to supplement the traditional academic disciplines.  These workshops play a much larger role than you might, at first, suspect.   Pictured above, three graduates from the dress making workshop […]

December 2015 Newsletter Eternal Triangle

The (obvious) eternal triangle Coffee The World Champion Barista of 2011 was Alejandro Mendez of San Salvador. Some our visitors were lucky enough to meet him in 2014 and get a specially brewed cup of coffee.El Salvador is a land of (wonderful!) coffee. However, the crop has been devastated by coffee-leaf rust fungus since 2000. This […]

December 2015 Newsletter Holiday Stories

Special Holiday Stories Christmas Feasting ~ food, never taken for granted     The real meaning of Christmas is never forgotten. Above, the children re-enacting the Nativity. A traditional Salvadoran candle-lit procession (a “posada”), below.   A typical day’s food ready for housemother pick-up at COAR’s store house.  Our Director, Marta, has been very successful […]

December 2015 Newsletter Executive Director

From the Peace Mission’s Executive Director By Mary K. Stevenson So, “Send forth your bread upon the face of the waters; after a long time you may find it again.”, ECCLESIASTES 11:1 Let me share some responses to my September message, that we need to increase our income by $50,000/year to keep up with increased […]

Possible Food Shortage: Central America Suffers Unusual Drought Due to El Nino

The climate in El Salvador is quite different from what we are used to in the northern MidWest. Our winter, roughly November thru April, is actually the Salvadoran summer. It is the dry and sunny season. There is almost no significant rainfall during this time of year. It is the beach-lovers paradise: tons of sun […]