Change . . . the only constant
Susan Dinehart (nee Barnish) is expecting a baby mid April 2025! Since she won’t be doing mission appeals at parishes this summer (she has done about 10-20 every summer since the pandemic) we started looking at other changes we need in our staff. It’s time.
Mary Stevenson - Executive Director
Mary has been Executive Director since she had dark(er) hair, it is time for her to move to a gentler role: Development Director (or any other fancy title that will allow her to continue doing mission appeals and visiting the COAR children staff, and people of Zaragoza and El Salvador!)
Mary Stevenson is the Executive Director of the COAR Peace Mission – the U.S. fundraising and outreach arm of the COAR Children’s Village in Zaragoza, El Salvador. She was a student at Beaumont High School in Cleveland Heights when Sr. Dorothy Kazel, OSU, left to begin her five-year assignment on the Cleveland Diocese’s Latin American Mission Team. Prevented from visiting the mission in the 1980s because of the civil war, including the murder of Sr. Dorothy, Mary first visited COAR in 1990 and experienced the anguish of El Salvador’s civil war through the orphans at COAR. Repeated visits through the years revealed the deep, healing, vital nature of the care, education, and vocational training that COAR gives its children. Won over by COAR, Ms. Stevenson left a business career to become Executive Director in 2004.
Susan Barnish Dinehart - Programs Director
The changes in Susan’s life are obvious . . .
Susan Dinehart (nee Barnish) is expecting a baby mid April 2025! Since she won’t be doing mission appeals at parishes this summer (she has done about 10-20 every summer since the pandemic) we started looking at other changes we need in our staff.
Susan Dinehart, with glasses, is COAR’s Programs Director. Susan holds a Masters degree in Spanish translation and was a volunteer for four years in rural Chalatenango, El Salvador, which allows her to manage our groups of visitors, sponsorship, grant materials, and communication between the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the COAR Children’s Village, and COAR Peace Mission office and our supporters in North America. Since the departure of the Incarnate Word Sisters in 2009 and the changes to El Salvador’s child care laws, this position has become more important than ever. Your donations allow our office to train, guide, and support the professional standards and practices of the staff in El Salvador that runs this crucial ministry of the Archdiocese of San Salvador.
Jenni Maravola - Database Manager/Bookkeeper
Jenni’s changes are that she just keeps getting better at her job. She began as COAR’s bookkeeper in 2007 fresh out of college. Her aptitude for database and other IT support has kept us current, cost-effective, and has kept YOUR DATA safe! She, too, had dark hair when she began working for the COAR children. It was purple on her visit last month. Enough said. Fun fact: she was born in Honduras and adopted by a loving family in the US when she was a baby. When we travel to El Salvador to see the kids, she gets in for free!
COAR Peace Mission Cleveland Office
The COAR office staff includes all kinds of extra help, sometimes a Sponsorship Coordinator, sometimes an Events Coordinator, and always includes volunteers, who help with the work of shredding, filing, and translating. All of us sign a donor privacy pledge. We keep the staff small and mostly part-time to keep the maximum amount of your donations going to the COAR children.