Giving Back trip for Ingrid Sargis!

It was so wonderful to have Ingrid Sargis and Debbie Olvera in El Salvador on a “Giving Back” trip in honor of Ingrid’s beloved sister, Rosemary, who recently passed away from cancer. Ingrid retired from Ameriican Airlines as a flight attendant, and later becaame a tiket agent for United in Palm Springs. As things are in the airline business – you always have to be ready to adapt! Their United flight had a mechanical and to make a long story short they finally got checked in their hotel at 2 AM!!! They were both troopers though and we completed the whole schedule!

We started out at the House of Life – Home for Mama’s and Babies

The House of Life Mama and Baby Shelter is a safe haven where pregnant, abused teens can heal, have healthy babies and learn how to bond and care for their babies. They also learn about their right to live in an abuse-free environment. This is the first such shelter in the country. The girls were in a cosmetology class at this time – they are also taking cooking classes at Gente Ayudando Gente and also learning to sew with three professional machines that Ingrid’s donation helped to fund!

Next we headed to Gente Ayudando Gente’s headquarters where we learned about the amazing work this non profit is doing helping vulnerable people in El Salvador. They have built 8,000 houses for families, coordinated nutritional support for many projects as well as medical and dental missions, and provide for job training with their Culinary and English Schools.

After a delicious lunch we headed over with tamales and sodas for all and a donation of food to one of our favorite projects – Zaragosa Home for Abandoned Elders We greeted everyone, served the tamales, and even took blind Maria on a nice walk. Once we started playing music, Maria jumped right in! See below the video of her dancing with Ingrid! Afterwards we visited El Espino, one of the communities built by Gente Ayudando Gente and celebrated Lisselots birthday at a fun local restaurant.

The next day, we got up early to travel to Apaneca where Gente Ayudando Gente is building a new housing project. We met the volunteer team working there and had the privilige of dedicating a new home to a young family. We gave them a New Testament and the keys tto the home and shared a prayer and blessing, The whole community came out to celebrate and we provided delicious sandwiches and drinks for all!

Afterwards our team headed towards Ataco and enjoyed a delicious lunch at Cafe Celeste…they we headed for the colorful town of Ataco! We lit candles at the local church in honor of Ingrid’s sister and shopped in the quaint and colorful town.

Our third day we toured a coffee “finca” (farm) in lovely Cajamarca on the San Salvador volcano. We hiked the plantation and learned the whole process of how to make a truly special cup of java. We even helped turn the coffee beans in the drying process!

After the coffee tour we enjoyed a lovely lunch at La Pampa and an amazing view from the volcano and on to the St Vincent de Paul Children’s Home with donatons of food and diapers. There, we played with the babies and had a chance to tour some of the facility that houses 300 orphans.

On the fourth day we got up early to head for Barra de Santiago. We stopped for lunch in Acajutla – El Salvador’s largest port for a fun lunch. Our driver, Don Pablo brought his young son Max to celebrate his 13th birthday with a turtle release at La Palapa – the home of our Turtle Conservation Project.

Once we arrived at La Palapa Ingrid and Debbie had a wonderful massage undet the palms, before our 5 pm turtle release where we released 300 baby turtles! After a swim and dinner under the stars we celebrated Max’s birthday and went to sleep…everyone but ingrid who had a midnight swim and slept in La Palapa to the sound of the surf.