The Gift of Shoes
Clothes were becoming a big deal for me as a sixth grader at St. Scholastica on Detroit’s northwest side in the early 1980s. Our school had gone from mostly white to mostly black over the previous two years, and I was doing my best to keep pace. I let go of my Gordon...
Sisterhood at the Dumpsite
Making friends is very noble. Maintaining the friendship despite all odds is loyalty. The story of Regina and Sarah epitomizes true friendship, showcasing the essence of "a friend in need is a friend indeed." Regina and Sarah have been neighbors and co-workers at the...
Pressing On
“A lot of our Samaritan Scholars have had to grow up too quickly,” said our Program Director in Jamaica, Sonja Robinson. “They haven’t had the opportunity to just be children without responsibilities.” These students are growing up in Riverton, in an area known for...
Two Secret Pathways to Prosperity
How do we break the chains of poverty? This is the last in a three-part series on how we achieve our mission. The primary lever we use, thanks to your support, is a holistic scholarship, costing $3,000 per year for almost 1,000 students this year—or a $12,000...
Poverty to Prosperity
We received two responses last week to our invitation to share your story about the personal characteristics needed to help people break out of poverty. I enjoyed their responses so much that I thought I would share them with you.Dr. Richard Buchta Grew up in upstate...
What’s Your Story?
Someone, somewhere in your family line, broke out of poverty, an accomplishment that changes the direction of an entire family tree. Almost 1,000 young people in eight cities are working hard to accomplish a similar feat for their families this year through a...
It’s Not an Impossible Dream
International Samaritan’s founders were shocked when they visited a dumpsite in Guatemala. With this shock a dream arose: to help people who were picking through trash at the dump. That mission reached us here in Villa Guadalupe. Our scholars all have the dream of...
It’s a Wonderful World
One of the blessings of my role here at International Samaritan is to visit with our teams and scholars in all eight communities at least once each year. In these Weekend Reflections, we try to share with you what life is like in these communities and a sense of the...
Showing Love with Food
In Honduras, “everyone knows how to make nacatamales,” says Ronia Romero, our program director in Tegucigalpa. And the cooking typically starts at four in the morning on Christmas Day! With an early start, the nacatamales (a mixture of meat, rice, vegetables, and...
A Gift of Christmas Cake
When Christmas nears, the Jamaican Christmas cakes start appearing. “The newspaper man gets a cake, the garbage man, the neighbor, the church, the school,” said Sonja Robinson, our Program Director in Jamaica. “She makes 50 to 60 cakes!” Sonja said, about her older...
For Your Holiday Table
In Ethiopia, “there’s no such thing as Christmas morning gifts,” said Selam Kahsay, our Health and Wellness Specialist. Instead, their Christmas Day celebrations revolve around food, coffee, and time with family and friends. “On Christmas Eve, we’re very caught up in...
Midnight Tamales
Food has a unique way of bringing people together, and that’s true all over the globe. As we prepare to gather with family and friends for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we asked a few of our international team members to share their Christmas traditions and a favorite...
