Lost and Found

The most disturbing video about our mission wasn’t made by us.  In 2017, Food for the Poor created this video about Anthony, who was then an 11-year-old boy working in El Ocotillo, the garbage dump outside of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where we have been serving since 2013.  I happened to stumble upon this video airing on a Christian TV network in the middle of the night last summer.  

Please take just 60 seconds to see why you are so needed here:

Appalled by what I saw, we sought Anthony out.  Erika Cuevas, the founder and leader of our work in El Ocotillo since 2013, found him in short order.  It was five years later, and he had dropped out of school and was still working in the dump.

This stuff just hurts my heart.  How can you hear Anthony’s story and look the other way? 

We didn’t.  Erika and her team didn’t just find Anthony.  They went after him with gusto.  In El Ocotillo, it can seem like there are only two options for young men like Anthony, joining a gang or working in the dump, and Anthony was doing his best to pursue the legal option, regardless of how destructive it could be.  Our team kept going back to him to encourage and convince him there could be another way.

Not long after we found Anthony, I was in El Ocotillo for the first-ever soccer match between the scholars of two of our communities—San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.  After the home team jumped out to a 5-0 lead at halftime, I sought help for them from a group of teenagers watching the game from the sidelines, pleading with them to join me on Team Tegucigalpa in the second half.  They pretty much all laughed at me, even though I could tell they really wanted to play.  But then one of them stepped forward.  It was Anthony.  

The boy who broke my heart in that video was now a young man.  He became Messi for us, scoring our only goal of the game in a thrilling 8-1 comeback.  

Our team never gave up on Anthony, and he is on a holistic scholarship with IntSam now, getting trained to be a barber with a dream of opening his own barbershop in the community.  To share his gratitude and talents with others, Anthony and his friend, Kevin (another IntSam scholar becoming a barber) gave haircuts for free to children in El Ocotillo last weekend.  You can see from their smiles the impact you are making through your support of him and the 900 other scholars at the heart of our mission.

This year, we are running the IntSam Global 5K to fund 50 holistic scholarships for young people like Anthony.  Please run with him, or just support him, by donating.  

IntSam Global 5K

I want to congratulate 16-year-old Angel Bautista from Honduras!  Angel is the winner of our 2023 IntSam Global 5K t-shirt design contest.

This year, we are running to provide 50 new scholars with a holistic scholarship. You can support that mission by signing up to run or by donating today.

Mike Tenbusch, IntSam President

Mike joined IntSam in 2018 after two decades of leading social change in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He’s a University of Michigan Law grad and author of The Jonathan Effect: Helping Kids and Schools Win the Battle Against Poverty. He and his wife, Maritza, have three children who keep them young.