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 […]
December 2015 Newsletter Honorary and Memorial

Salvadorans love Korean Soap Operas! Who knew?
How many of you have flipped through the cable channels and stopped, ever so briefly, on a Mexican Soap Opera? Here in America, the Mexican Telenovela is ubiquitous. They are often the butt of jokes in movies and English-language TV shows. But, did you know that since 2004, Korean Soap Operas or “Doramas” have dominated […]
THANK YOU SISTER CARMEN!

The four Catholic Sisters from the Missionary Order: Our Lady of the Pillar of Zaragoza (Spain) have become an institution at COAR. While they have only been at COAR for less than 2 years, their love, leadership, service and dedication to the kids has made their presence a blessing. On September 15th, 2015, the COAR […]
COAR Invited to Speak at the Cleveland Council on World Affairs

On Thursday, September 10th, COAR’s Executive Director Mary Stevenson, was invited to speak at an evening program sponsored by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs. It was an intimate gathering at the Market Garden Brewery on West 25th street in Cleveland, Ohio. CCWA had reserved Market Garden Brewery’s conference room for this wonderful event. It […]