Your Gifts are a Living Posada

Providing our Children Room at the Inn A “posada” is a traditional procession during the nine days before Christmas in Latin America. (The COAR children staged it in November when we visited.) A couple, playing Mary and Joseph, knock on doors asking for a room. The “innkeepers” behind the room refuse them entry. (Sometimes the […]

Exciting Podcast on COAR’s past & future

In the September episode of the Generative Spirits Rachel Drotar of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland speaks to Sr. Sheila Marie Tobbe, OSU, and Mary Stevenson, Executive Director of COAR, about the mission and history of COAR and how its connection to Cleveland has lasted for decades.  We invite you to listen to […]

Solidarity in these divided times

Whenever we have visitors at COAR, the students (in the school) and the residents (living at COAR in foster care) thrill, delight, and overwhelm us with their generosity of spirit and their creativity in signs, decorations, hand-crafted gifts, and culinary confections.  Really, it is a wonderful experience to be enveloped by their youth, exuberance, and […]

Community Film School and Facing Reality

Or, how to keep busy during an ongoing pandemic . . . Interhouse soccer tournaments, daily gospel reflections, and Zumba videos can only get you so far—even with the usual schoolwork and household chores. So Marta, our director, has found a creative outlet for six of our COAR kids. She’s signed them up for film […]

Special Feature: COAR Kids’ Artwork

Thanks to this summer’s auction, we here at COAR (and you) have been privileged to enjoy some of the paintings from our residents. But now, these wonderful young artists are getting internet-wide exposure through participation in the Memory and Resistance exhibit. This exhibit, sponsored by InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia, COAR Peace Mission, Ursuline […]

This is why you give: 40 years of keeping children safe and enabling resilience

The children are safe from this pandemic. The children are meeting the challenges of this pandemic. The children will be prepared when this pandemic ends. When this 40th year began we thought it would be non-stop celebrations at the Children’s Village, in our town and parish in Zaragoza, all over El Salvador, and among supporters […]

Notes From Quarantine

  As we’ve been preparing the Spring Sponsorship mailing to go out, (Don’t worry, sponsors, you’ll get to read your whole letter for yourself soon!) a common thread runs through the residents’ letters. Staying. At. Home. We’re all living through the same storm these days, so let’s take a look at what the COAR residents are […]

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”

The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine are the backdrop for Lent, Easter, and the Resurrection. The children are healthy, thanks to you. They are praying for your health amidst this COVID-19 pandemic. Lent began at COAR on February 26th, Ash Wednesday, with the traditional Catholic ceremony of making a cross on the forehead with ashes of the […]

Kids Helping Kids

One of the most encouraging outcomes of working with our COAR children is seeing how they inspire other youth to work for change in our society. Friendship Bracelets Take for example, a young friend of ours. The summer before fifth grade, she had been selling lemonade all summer, her mom told us, and wanted to […]

Day of Friendship

At COAR, and around most of El Salvador, February 14th is celebrated as the Day of Friendship. School classes play “Amigo Secreto” (like Secret Santa, but good any time of the year!), friends take each other out for ice cream, and some groups even use the day to hold fundraising dinners as a chance for […]