Blog Posts

CAA Provides Additional Funding to Árbol de Esperanza

5/19/2023

On Wednesday, May 3, CAA Board members Janice B. and Mary Lou H. met with Mariam Vargas, Development and Communications Coordinator at Árbol de Esperanza to continue to explore our collaboration activities. For the past two months, as a result of the generosity of CAA members and friends, CAA has been able to provide Árbol with food support funding in the amount of 55,000 colones per month to assist their program participants in need. Both Árbol and those who have received assistance are most grateful for the support. Below are a couple of stories that Mariam shared with us as to how our help is making a difference.

Lucrecia* is an elderly person who does not have the help of her relatives. She has health issues that prevent her from walking without the aid of a cane and she is not able to walk or stand for long periods of time. She does receive a State pension as an older adult, but it does not come close to covering all of her housing, services, health needs and food. Thanks to the food support donation, last month she was able to receive a variety of good food and take care of some of her other expenses. She said, “Thank you for your help. It was a surprise. I am very grateful that you considered my situation and gave me the opportunity to have food on my table this month.”

María* is responsible for caring for her grandchildren. In addition, she has a pressing health issue that does not allow her to carry out a lot of strenuous daily activities without compromising her health. Thanks to the food support donation, Maria was able to cover her food needs and, in turn, make empanadas to sell and generate income. She has shown a lot of initiative to improve her economic and health situations. She said, “The week that I was feeling that things were really difficult, the help I needed arrived. Due to my illness and health, it has been difficult for me to get ahead. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help you have given me."
Also, as a result of another example of CAA generosity, we delivered two large suitcases and a backpack full of clothes as well as several tote bags containing assorted canned goods, household items, and art and office supplies. These were all donated by CAA folks who no longer needed them. Árbol may share some items with selected program participants but will also include them in their periodic garage sale fundraising activities. If you have clothes or other items that are useable and in good condition, why not consider donating them to Árbol?

For more information on Árbol de Esperanza, their program, and their needs, visit their website at https://www.arboldeesperanza.org

If you would like to make a donation for food support, you can give a cash donation to any Board member at any CAA-sponsored event or make a secure online donation at Feeding Hungry Families www.globalgiving.org/56450

~Mary Lou H.

*The names have been changed to protect the identities of the program participants.

On to University!

5/14/2023

This year, the Education Committee asked our scholarship students to fill out a questionnaire detailing their future goals, likes, and possible obstacles. This furthers our initiative to focus more on planning forward, earlier in the Colegio experience, to help students begin to identify goals and careers; and to help students begin to think of the academic achievements and vocational courses necessary to achieve those goals. This information also informs and drives the new tutoring initiative we are piloting for our students in 2023.

Below is an installment in a series that showcases the hopes, dreams, and interests of individual students in our CAA Scholarship (beca) program.

This year, three of the Colegio students in the CAA Education Program have been accepted by universities to continue their educations for professional training. These students have worked diligently throughout their primary and secondary classes and have overcome many difficulties. We at CAA are extremely proud of them for completing their studies and maintaining the high marks required for university admission. We will be acknowledging these students and their accomplishment on this news page.

Our first graduate is Cecilia,* an outgoing and enthusiastic young woman who has been accepted at the University of Costa Rica, or UCR. She was born and grew up in San Ramón with her mother and her brother. During Cecilia’s childhood, her mother worked to support the family while also completing her own high school studies.

Because she lived far from town, Cecilia left for school at 4 am and would return home at 6 pm. In spite of this difficult schedule, she did very well in school and maintained high grades throughout. Cecilia spent 11 years in the CAA scholarship program, from 2012 to 2023. She enjoyed school and learning, and excelled in many areas, including art and science, as well as math.

She particularly enjoyed learning languages, and has studied French and English, and is studying Portuguese. She is very fluent in English and hopes to study Italian and German also. She chose the Accounting Program as her major at UCR because she is good at math, and because she felt that there are many careers open to accounting majors.

Cecilia took advantage of the tutoring classes sponsored by CAA, and she feels that those classes helped her to reach her goal of attending UCR. Cecilia will be leaving San Ramón and moving to San José to attend classes this school year, but she remains close to her family in San Ramón.

When I asked what she looks forward to at UCR, Cecilia said she looks forward to meeting more people, exchanging ideas, and having new experiences. With such an open and enthusiastic outlook she will surely make the most of the opportunities life has to offer. We wish her success in her career and are glad that CAA helped her to achieve this goal.

~Janice Brown, CAA Education Committee

If you would like to contribute financially to our San Ramón students who need your help to be successful in school, go to www.globalgiving.org/18714

*The name has been changed to protect the identity of the student.

Good News from the Sustainability Committee

5/1/2023

With approximately one third of our 2023 fiscal year completed, we have generated over 92 percent of the income needed to fund our operating budget for the year. Our operating budget is used to fund various required administrative expenses such as our annual meeting, communication software licensing, web hosting and domain registrations, and financial and legal fees associated with being a Costa Rica association. The main source of funding for our operating budget is membership dues, though this year we have gained additional funds from various member-initiated activities such as tai chi classes and book sales as well as individual donations designated for administrative support.

Though not as visible or potentially as exciting as the recent fundraising successes for our philanthropic projects, achieving a solid and healthy operating budget is critical to CAA’s ability to continue to make a positive difference in the lives of our members and our neighbors in need in our adopted community. As a result, we offer a sincere “thank you” to everyone who has contributed to this effort.

If you are not a member and would like to join or you are a member and need to renew your membership, it is easy to do. The annual dues are 5,000 colones and you can find payment options at the link below link or give your payment to any board member at coffee or the mixers. https://www.actionalliancecr.com/join-caa.html.

We appreciate your continued support.
~Mary Lou H.

Wow! We Are Excited!

4/10/2023

On April 1 we made our first food support donation to Árbol de Esperanza to be used to help the women in their program who might be experiencing food insecurity. And based on the generosity of CAA’s members and friends, we will be able to continue to provide the monthly amount of 55,000 colones (approximately $100) to the organization through the end of the year. Arbol will use these funds to support the food needs, either crisis or routine, of the women who are working hard do move themselves and their families from poverty to self-sufficiency.

Árbol de Esperanza, their program participants, and CAA thank you for your generosity!

For more information on Árbol de Esperanza and the good work they are doing in the community, visit their website at https://www.arboldeesperanza.org

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

4/7/2023

Elena* is a very impressive young woman in CAA’s Beca (scholarship) Program and I have been following her progress for almost 10 years, first as a member of the Education Committee and then as a close friend. She has always been interested in studying English, Math, and the Sciences and never lost her focus on these subjects during her years in Colegio. Her desire was to become a medical doctor or researcher in biomedicine. She attended the Palmares Bilingual Colegio, graduating in 2021, and despite her excellent grades in the International Baccalaureate Program at Colegio, she failed to make high enough scores on the entrance exam to attend the University of Technology in Cartago to study biomedicine. Instead of giving up, she devised a different route to achieve her goal and one very unusual for Costa Rican students.

Upon realizing that she would be unable to attend the University of Technology, Elena decided to take a job with the Cleveland Clinic Call Center. They gave her her own computer, installed very fast WiFi in her apartment in San Ramón, and then with a bit of training, she was off! Within nine months, she was training other Ticos new to the call center as well as taking three classes in the sciences and pre-medicine at the Universidad Americana in Heredia.

In Costa Rica, it is very unusual for college students to work even part-time while attending classes, but Elena manages to work a 40-hour week AND also pursue her academic dreams.

UAM is a private university where many students interested in medical and health careers study even though it is expensive to attend—certainly by Costa Rican standards! However, she is managing to both work and make A’s and I certainly expect her to ultimately reach her goals. She is an excellent example of the kind of students we see in our Beca Program every year who are learning how to set goals, work toward achieving them, and when meeting roadblocks like Elena did, finding a different route toward success. What a privilege it has been to witness this and to help these students achieve their goals through our donations—both money and time—and because of the personal relationships we develop with them through the years. I can’t wait to see Elena become a doctor one day or researcher one day. Who knows? Maybe she will discover a “cure” for aging.

Speaking of “reaching goals,” CAA has initiated the current session of tutoring for our 11th grade students (final year of high school in Costa Rica) in our Beca Program with 10 weeks of preparation for the entrance exams to the public universities in Costa Rica. Because most of them lost almost two years due to Covid, it is obvious they are not ready academically for these difficult exams. The Education Committee has been able to pay for the current group of high school seniors to attend three hours of exam preparation every Saturday for 10 weeks at MG Capitacion here in San Ramón. We hope that this tutoring and further tutoring in English, Math, Reading/Reasoning, and Chemistry will continue through this academic year and that these students will then be able to achieve their goals of a college education. Thanks to all our members for helping them be successful.

~Marian Latham, CAA Education Committee

*The name has been changed to protect the identity of the student.

Great News x 2 from the Sustainability Committee

4/4/2023

Little by Little Campaign Results
Hola everyone! Thank you so much to all of you who participated in the Little by Little campaign which ran from April 4-7. We had excellent results. Among our three projects on the Global Giving platform, (Feeding Hungry Families, Brightening the Lives of Children and Educational Scholarship Support) we raised $540 in direct donations and we received $220 from the 50% match offered by Global Giving. Together they produced a total of $760 that is now available to help us continue our philanthropic work in our community. Your continued generosity and commitment is so very much appreciated.

If you were not able to make a donation during the Campaign but would like to help support this important work, you can make a donation using any of the links below. Though a donation now will not have the benefit of the special 50% match, all ongoing financial support is important and always welcomed.

A reminder of the Recurring Donation Program: When you make a recurring donation to a project, after four consecutive donations, Global Giving will gift us an amount equal to one month’s donation. This is a great way to amplify our efforts and also provide predictability to our ability to consistently support our designated projects.

Feeding Hungry Families     www.globalgiving.org/56450
Give the Gift of Education    www.globalgiving.org/18714
Brighten the Lives of Children    www.globalgiving.org/57142

Helping the Hogarcito
Because of CAA members’ and friends’ consistent and ongoing generosity, CAA is able to explore other organizations who might be in need of food support funding. As a result, Linda D. and Mary Lou H. met with Johana Caldahar, Hogarcito Director on April 13 to discuss the orphanage’s food support needs. We agreed to provide them with 50,000 colones per month, starting this month, April, and going through the end of the year to purchase fruits and vegetables and other foods they buy on a weekly basis. This will allow 50,000 colones of the money they receive from the government to be redirected from their food budget to pay for other worthwhile and needed items. They were most grateful and appreciative for our support. The Hogarcito works hard to meet all the needs of the children, who seem lively and happy. Just take a look at the wonderful photos on their Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/Hogarcitosanramon. CAA is glad to be able to help them.

With much gratitude for all that you do,
The Sustainability Committee

Recurring Donations With a Bonus!

3/15/2023

In 2022, CAA partnered with Global Giving, a US-based charitable crowd-funding platform, to provide a safe, easy, and convenient way for CAA members and friends to donate online to support our philanthropic activities. In addition to providing a variety of support tools and programs to help smaller grassroots organizations like ours become more knowledgeable and effective in our fundraising efforts, Global Giving also provides several special incentive fundraising campaigns throughout the year (like last November’s Giving Tuesday) that we can participate in to help increase donor engagement.

One great program which Global Giving offers year round is the Recurring Monthly Match Program. When someone commits to a recurring monthly donation of $10 or more to a project, after the fourth consecutive donation, Global Giving will provide CAA with an extra bonus donation equivalent to donor’s monthly donation amount. For example, if you make a monthly recurring donation of $25 for four consecutive months, in the fifth month Global Giving will provide CAA with an additional bonus donation of $25.

CAA has a number of members and friends who are currently participating in this program by making a recurring monthly donation to one or two of our projects or, in certain cases, to all three of them! Needless to say, we are extremely grateful for their commitment and believe the program provides significant benefits to both the donor and CAA. The benefit to a donor is that once they determine an amount that fits within their budget, they can “set it and forget it” and know that their efforts will be amplified by Global Giving. The benefit to CAA, is, of course, the obvious one of the donors’ contributions plus the Global Giving financial boost. Of equal importance, however, is the fact that recurring monthly donations provide CAA with a level of predictability to our ability to support our projects and make commitments on an ongoing basis to our local recipient organizations.

If you would like to participate in this program by making a recurring monthly donation to any or all of our projects, you can do so below. We thank you for your generosity and support!
Feeding Hungry Families www.globalgiving.org/56450
Brighten the Lives of Children www.globalgiving.org/57142
Give the Gift of Education www.globalgiving.org/18714

Sofia*

3/10/2023

This year, the Education Committee asked our scholarship students to fill out a questionnaire detailing their future goals, likes, and possible obstacles. This furthers our initiative to focus more on planning forward, earlier in the Colegio experience, to help students begin to identify goals and careers; and to help students begin to think of the academic achievements and vocational courses necessary to achieve those goals. This information also informs and drives the new tutoring initiative we are piloting for our students in 2023.

Below is an installment in a series that showcases the hopes, dreams, and interests of individual students in our CAA Scholarship (beca) program.

*The names have been changed to protect the identities of the students.

I joined Sofia and her brother Jaime* while we were helping prepare materials for our February beca award meeting. I came specifically to get to know some of the students that CAA Education Committee members have been following for years through attending their award ceremonies. Sofia’s brother introduced himself and reminded me that he had been a beca student and had graduated three years ago. What a thrill to see this evidence of the ripple effect of the Education Committee’s work in one family! His English was excellent and he is currently a student at Technologico de Costa Rica in Cartago. Both he and Sofia, chatting in rapid English, spoke of the motivation of their siblings, all of whom are pursuing advanced education. This is in a family where the father is unable to work due to cancer and other family members pick coffee.

This school term, Sofia was one of only 35 colegio students taking the exam to be admitted to Colegio Cientifico, located within the campus of UCR San Ramón. As the name says, Colegio Cientifico emphasizes the sciences and shares labs and resources with the university. Sofia’s favorite subjects are chemistry and biology and she hopes to study microbiology and possibly cardiology after graduation from colegio. When asked how she knew about the opportunity to test for Colegio Cientifico, her brother said he encouraged her to apply and provided the contact information for Sofia to follow up.

On her questionnaire, Sofia told us that distance and finances are the barriers that could impact her education. She credits CAA for helping with finances. Later, I caught up with her at a meeting about tutoring opportunities and Sofia told me that her acceptance by the colegio includes an apartment in San Ramón for her, solving the distance issue. I wondered how I would have felt as a high school junior, living away from my family and enrolled in a competitive high school. However, Sofia’s recent letter answers my concerns since she uses words such as “esfuerza” (effort) and “superacion” (overcoming), which demonstrates her outlook. Sofia lists her activities as swimming, basketball, drawing and poetry. I found her to have an engaging and infectious personality, not just for her outstanding academic record, but for her obvious enjoyment of her favorite movies and music. Getting to know her a bit has been its own reward.

~Andrea Carter, CAA Education Committee

Blankets for Babies Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary!

3/1/2023

Each month for the past five years, Blankets for Babies has supplied 20 newborn packets stuffed with handmade necessities and more to the moms of underprivileged babies born in the San Ramón Hospital!

That means, not counting the recent addition of onesies, lined rubber pants, and baby carrier slings, the Blankets for Babies group has made and delivered:

1200 mats (360 yards of plastic sheeting)
1200 blankets (600 yards of flannel)
1200 toys (dogs, bears, monkeys, elephants, rattles, et cetera)
1080 crocheted hats over 4.5 years
480 masks for moms during Covid-19
And SIX THOUSAND burpies! If all those burpies were placed on top of each other, the stack would be more than 100 feet tall!

Many many volunteers have donated countless hours, mountains of supplies, and millions of colones. We love and appreciate them all!

CAA added Blankets for Babies as an alliance last year and provides support so BfB can continue giving these items to the hospital.

A big thank you to everyone who comes the first Friday of every month to work on these items. They work for several hours and then share a delicious potluck lunch.
For information about Blankets for Babies San Ramón or to contribute to this program, please visit the Blankets for Babies page https://www.actionalliancecr.com/blankets-for-babies.html on CAA’s website.

Congratulations to our eight 2022 colegio graduates and a newly "degreed" Social Worker; now we re-focus on the Class of 2023!

2/19/2023

The Education Committee, along with smiling students and parents, gathered January 28 to celebrate the eight graduates from the CAA Scholarship Class of 2022, joining twelve earlier graduates for a total of twenty to date. Our hard-working Intern, Alisson, also earned her Social Worker degree from UCR in 2022. This was a very good year for our scholarship students!

After graduating eight students from 2022 and losing one due to academics and another for disciplinary issues we added six new students to make up this 2023 class of 25 students. We reduced the class size from 29 to 25 and re-apportioned the budget to fund additional tutoring and to bring on a new intern trainee, Noelia. Alisson and the Committee will train Noelia for the rest of 2023 to get her ready to take over intern duties in 2024. Alisson will continue as a CAA scholarship student for most of 2024 while working on her thesis and social worker license, allowing her to help Noelia successfully transition into the primary role of Program Administrative Intern.

On the 28th, we awarded the 2022 colegio graduates with special graduation vouchers, and five students received academic achievement awards for scoring 90 or above on all of their subjects last year. We then awarded scholarship vouchers to the 25 Class of 2023 scholarship students, and off they went to our merchant partners to collect their school necessities. As of February 15th, we have already funded 4.7 million colones in education aid, and, by the end of the year, we expect to fund a total of almost 11.7 million (about $20,000).

We are pleased that two of our graduates—both multi-year academic excellence award winners—were accepted by UCR for studies in architecture and in accounting. One of these proud graduates stood before the group to express her appreciation for the assistance and support given her by the CAA Scholarship Program over the past 10 years. She was one of our first enrollees in 2013! She encouraged the next classes to work hard for those grades, seek help when needed, and take responsibility for their own growth, and to set goals and find ways to reach those academic and career goals. University accounting courses await her in March.
Other graduates missed scoring high enough for the UCR cut-off and plan to enter the UNED (distance learning university). At least one student, who missed the UCR cut-off by a single point, plans to register at UNED and then to re-take the entrance test again next year hoping for admission.

What are we doing to help? The Committee earmarked up to 1.5 million colones to fund a new initiative, specialized tutoring support, and, for the second year, to fund university entrance exam prep courses. Additionally, we are arranging for our students to attend Saturday math tutoring sessions through a no-cost program offered by UCR locally. Arranging for our students to attend these sessions on Saturdays will be challenging, but if students are motivated to catch up on their studies and be ready for the next opportunity, we will do our best to assist them. With these new tutoring initiatives, Alisson really needs the additional capacity that Noelia can offer. Noelia is already degreed in social work, and is now studying law, so she will be an asset to our intern services.

Additionally, later in February, and into March, we are scheduling forward-focused orientation sessions for the fourth- and fifth-year students and their parents; to inform them of available vocational and university eligibility requirements. It is critically important that 4th year colegio students focus on academics—fully 50% of their university eligibility score is based on the last two years of colegio grades, and Johanna Fernandez advises that the 4th year grades actually represent 2/3rds of that colegio score used for university admission. So buckling down early is the key to university eligibility. For those students who will not go to university, it is important to think about future careers and identify the paths necessary to achieve those career goals.

At the conclusion of the awards ceremony, a number of students and parents remained to hug the education committee members and to share their gratitude for the assistance. These sentiments were matched by the satisfaction of the education committee members who have worked tirelessly to help the students reach this important milestone.

We are so very thankful for the ongoing local and international support. Because of your efforts, CAA has been able to provide just over $100,000 in educational funding to San Ramón area students over the past 10 years. The graduation and university degree total continues to build each year, reinforcing our resolve to assist these families in poverty through education.

January 28 was a day of pride for all of us, and a reminder that it truly takes a village to raise a child! Our goal now is to make the Class of 2023 even better prepared to meet the future.

If you would like to contribute to our San Ramón students who need your help to be successful in school, go to www.globalgiving.org/18714

~Scott McAnally, Education Committee Leader

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