Blog Posts

Two Broken Arms and He Still Graduated with Honors!

1/31/2023

One of our scholarship students, Alvaro*, and his cousin were out riding on his bicycle one day recently (together on the same bike) and upon coming to a steep hill thought, “Wow, going down this should be really fun.” (They were 12, after all.) As it turned out, it wasn’t as much fun as they had imagined and Alvaro ended up with both arms broken, although his cousin jumped off and managed to avoid injury. Graduation from the Bilingue Escuela in San Isidro, San Ramón was in less than a week and he was determined to attend and managed to do so with the help of his long-suffering, patient mother, Evelyn.

As a long-term member of the CAA’s Education Scholarship Program and having attended many students’ graduations, I was quite impressed with Alvaro’s determination to be in attendance that day as well as with his excellent grades. He was still in quite a bit of pain, but he happily told me that day after the outdoor ceremony was completed that, “I would have attended even if I had also broken my leg!”

So, on this beautiful sunny day after the Costa Rican anthem was proudly sung, diplomas distributed with many teachers’ hugs, and proud parents took pictures, I left thinking about all the people who contributed to such graduations by providing tutoring or donations for supplies and uniforms for students like Alvaro who had maintained such a high grade-point average in spite of difficulties like broken arms, and it made me feel happy to have been even a small part of this significant event.

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
~Marian Latham

* In the interest of child safety, we have changed his name and covered his face.

Sustainability Committee 2022 Accomplishments and 2023 Goals

12/31/2022

The start of a new year traditionally provides an opportunity to survey the accomplishments of the previous year and make plans for the coming year. When we survey 2022, we realize we have much to be grateful for:

A steady increase in membership with 108 members at year-end;
New easy, quick, and safe online donation capabilities through the Global Giving platform;
A very successful, first-time Giving Tuesday online fundraising campaign that raised $1,300+ to support our philanthropy;
An increase in the number of Global Giving donors who have committed to monthly recurring donations, which helps us predict the availability of funds;
And renewed opportunities for in-person socializing via mixers, day-away trips, Thursday morning coffee, and various classes.

As we look forward to 2023, the Sustainability Committee is making plans to continue the progress:

We are in the process of developing the 2023 annual operating budget with greater precision and confidence based on the actual experience of 2022.
Based on the Global Giving income for the two new projects (Feeding Hungry Families and Brighten the Lives of Children), we now have the ability to set up a reserve for unexpected contingencies that might occur. This is similar to what the Education Program has been doing for the past number of years.
With more predictable funding on a regular basis, we are able to enhance/expand our activities with our local alliance partners.
We have convened a committee to review and revise the by-laws as needed to keep them in synch with current requirements.
We will continue to explore ways to recruit and retain members and to identify and support the needs and interests of the membership.

Education Committee Meets to Finalize 2023 Plans

12/28/2022

Our large and hard-working Education Committee met for several hours on December 27. Among the topics covered regarding the Scholarship Program were:

Updates on colegio orientation sessions, university applications, academic challenges.
Update on current class grades, interviews underway; and progress in recruiting an apprentice/trainee Intern to replace Alisson in 2024.
A review of funding and reserves.
Budgeting for 2023 classes including class sizes, extra tutoring support, and apprentice intern recruitment and training.
Ongoing promotion of the programs.
Increasing engagement with students and their families to enrich mentoring and understanding.

Christmas Toy Drive

12/26/2022

We were honored to join the Lions Club of San Ramón and their wonderful volunteer team this year to distribute 65 gifts to local families in December. The final amount donated by CAA members was $600. The total amount raised by both organizations was a 50% increase in last year’s donations, resulting in a significant impact on recipients and items selected.

Giving Tuesday Results

12/1/2022

Tuesday, November 29 was an exciting day for CAA! It was our first participation in the worldwide Giving Tuesday event with outstanding results! Thanks to the generosity of CAA members and friends and friends of friends, among our three projects we were able to raise $980 in direct donations and earn an additional $367 from Global Giving’s incentive fund. That is a grand total of $1347 to help us feed hungry families, support motivated students, and put smiles on the faces of deserving children. To add to the excitement, there were several first-time donors as well as several folks who pledged a recurring monthly donation. Recurring donations are much appreciated as they provide us with regular, predictable income to enhance our ability to plan support for our projects.

So a huge thank you is in order to all who participated—those who gathered info and pictures and created the weekly Tuesday stories, those who shared the information with family and friends, and of course, those who contributed so generously to allow us to maximize our results.
Thank You and Hooray for CAA!

~Mary Lou Hoffman

English Conversation Club Holds Recruiting Event in the Park

11/20/2022

CAA volunteers and Becca students were at the central park on November 19 promoting CAA’s English Conversation Class program. It was the first test of the new CAA t-shirts. Thanks to Alisson and students and our member volunteers. The students met people all around the park promoting the classes and handing a small sheet with info and scan code to sign up and pay online. They also went to the business fair at the Gimnasio Gabelo and promoted the classes. The event was a success and Dustin has created a special course for the students integrated with a group of English teachers during a four-week course in San Ramón.

Giving Tuesday is Coming!

10/25/2022

Community Action Alliance is excited to participate in Giving Tuesday, an online fundraising event, on November 29. On that day people around the world will donate to their favorite causes at globalgiving.org. To make things even more exciting, Global Giving will give participant organizations a share of a $1.2 million incentive fund that will be divided among participants proportionally based on the final fundraising totals.

Please consider making an online gift to one of these CAA programs on Tuesday, November 29 to help us reach our Giving Tuesday goal AND help us increase our share of the $1.2 million incentive bonus fund!

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

What's Ahead for Our December 2022 High School Graduates?

10/14/2022

By Scott McAnally and Mariana Latham, CAA Education Committee
Our nine graduating Colegio (high school) students are heavily involved in classes and are anticipating graduation in December. Eight of those graduates are taking two more university admission entrance exams in October in addition to final Colegio exams before graduation. The eight university applicants will face two to three months of uncertainty waiting for a January notification of scores and acceptance. In Costa Rica, each public university compiles a ranked list of eligible students by exam scores for available slots in each degree field. Some students will not rank high enough to get into their preferred career field and may decide to begin university in another field. Although it may be disappointing not to be accepted into a student’s preferred field, some students starting university in another field can switch career fields by earning excellent grades—but only if a slot opens in the preferred field.

During this period of university acceptance uncertainty, students and their families must still complete financial aid applications and be prepared in the event the student gets the opportunity for admission. Absent a government scholarship and housing/food support, none of these students are likely to be able to attend a public university.

CAA’s member volunteer and expert in university financial aid conducted a March workshop for our students to give them the admission and financial aid application deadlines and advice. We will continue to assist, on a family-by-family basis, with aid applications and the complexities of gaining a scholarship.

For those who are not accepted into a public university with a financial scholarship, the road ahead is to find a job that will pay enough for tuition at a private university, or just give up and take a low paying job. Students may also try to attend the public technical/trade school (INA) while continuing to re-take entrance exams and hoping for admission to a public university.
How can these students overcome the academic losses of the past four years?

The other 20 non-graduating students face the daily challenge of trying to keep their grades up despite having lost so much in-person class time.

By official estimates, the teacher-strike-and-pandemic-affected students have lost as much as two years of subject mastery. We are told that the public schools have relaxed tests/grading in recognition of lower achievement expectations. However, this lower bar does not help with the university admission tests—those standardized tests are the same today as they were four years ago. It is clearly disappointing for our students to realize that being a “good student” in high school isn’t enough to enter a public university in their preferred field. Only the “best students” throughout the country get that opportunity.

These students desperately need after-class tutoring (primarily in math, Spanish, and English). We learned first-hand how deficient most of our graduating scholarship students are in math during the 16 sessions of prep/refresher courses that CAA sponsored from July through mid-September.

However, it appears that waiting until the year of graduation to participate in these university exam refresher courses is too late to significantly improve university admission prospects. Almost all of our students were below expected levels (by university standards) when they entered high school in the 7th grade and continued to lose ground until graduation.

These students desperately need ongoing tutoring beginning early in high school. Most of our students lack home academic support for schoolwork. Few have educated parents or older siblings who can help, and many lack adequate access to books or Internet/computer support. From parent feedback, our students’ public-school teachers are not very helpful when students ask for help to locate tutoring resources. Now, CAA is being challenged to find ongoing tutoring for many of our high school students.

Arranging tutoring is a big challenge! We continue to search for tutoring options for our students, but the logistics and costs present challenges. For example, it cost $1,000 for these special refresher courses for eight students this year. Furthermore, our scholarship students are attending five Colegios around San Ramón, and many of the students are bused in from outlying neighborhoods. The bus transport schedules, at an individual student level, dictate the student’s availability for after-class tutoring. Colegio campus officials are reluctant to allow non-certified teachers/tutors to use classrooms or be on campus.

Some of our scholarship students are lucky enough to live near a CAA member who agrees to assist as a tutor. My wife and I provide English tutoring each Saturday for two young women in our rural pueblo; sixth and eighth grades. A few other CAA members provide tutoring in their homes for a student in their area.

Despite the limitations and challenges, most of our scholarship students will be the first in their family to graduate high school, and some will master university studies. Achieving these important milestones would not be possible without the collective investment of our supportive donors through Education Equals Hope, Inc., GlobalGiving, and locally. None of this would be possible without CAA’s dedicated local volunteers. On behalf of these San Ramón students, we are forever grateful to those helping us alleviate poverty through education. Together we can continue to give hope and make a difference, one student at a time.

Big News Times Two!

9/27/2022

We’ve updated our website (https://www.actionalliancecr.com/) to share all the ways Community Action Alliance of San Ramón reaches out to help our adopted community. Now it’s easy for you to stay up to date with our programs and find ways to help improve the lives of those who live in poverty, experience food insecurity, and/or need a basic education that might otherwise be unattainable.
To make it easier than ever to donate financially to these important outreaches, CAA has partnered with Global Giving in the US to create three opportunities to help, all tax-deductible for US Citizens:
- CAA’s Help Brighten the Lives of Children Living in Poverty initiative, through the Blankets for Babies, Birthday Buddies, and Christmas Toy Drive programs. Learn more here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/help-brighten-the-lives-of-children-in-poverty/
- CAA’s Feed Hungry Families in San Ramón initiative, through our Gift of Education, Árbol de Esperanza alliance and Tamale Christmas program. Learn more here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/feed-hungry-families-in-san-ramon-costa-rica/
- CAA’s Give the Gift of Education initiative through our Education Scholarship Program. Learn more here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/give-the-gift-of-education-to-children-in-poverty/

CAA now has more than 100 members and we’re growing every day. With all the sweat equity, limit to what we can accomplish to improve the lives of others here in San Ramon.

With much hope for the future we remain,

Your Community Action Alliance Board of Directors

Time Flies and Kids Grow Up, but it’s Never Too Late to Make an Impact!

9/13/2022

All of our CAA Scholarship Program 2022 graduates are eagerly awaiting December, when they will graduate high school. Some will anxiously await news of acceptance into one of the three public universities. As you might recall, the university entrance exams are scheduled for August and September. The last class review session concluded on Saturday, September 10. We hope our investment in the two different classes of exam preparation reviews have paid off for these students, but we know that public university admission is now quite competitive, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for success for these students.

Notwithstanding these high school pressures and anxieties, it was all fun and games at the Escuela de Potrerillos in celebration of Dia del Niños on Friday, September 9. Linda and I volunteered to provide gift baskets for each of the 17 Potrerillos elementary students, and we also delivered a five-gallon tub of Dos Piños ice-cream and cones—the kids eagerly lined up and we packed those cones as fast as we could to keep up! After pizza, ice cream, and games, we assembled the kids to help them learn to throw a Yo-Yo, and all the while, we quizzed the kids on their mastery of beginning English. A few students surprised us, but most were at a very basic level of English as we anticipated. Few have any exposure to English speakers in our rural area. Linda and I are tutoring two local students in basic English (6th and 8th graders) in our home, and we know that many other CAA members also contribute time to tutor students. We are exploring opportunities to organize regular English (reinforcement) classes at the local Potrerillos school, but this will have to await discussion with the local parents (PTA), and approvals.

Working with these young elementary kids on Día del Niños reminded us of the investment CAA has made in education for numerous children, starting in 2013, with students in the second or third grades. Now even that first class, containing the youngest students, is graduating Colegio in 2022!
Time flies, but our recent Día del Niños experience reminded us that it is never too late to make an investment in education for one of these deserving students from a poverty-stricken family in our adopted community.
Whether you donate your time, expertise, money, or tutor a student, it is an investment that will pay dividends for years to come. Please consider expanding CAA’s impact to the community through your service and support—it is a fulfilling journey!
These Potrerillos Escuela students will enjoy ice cream all week!

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