COAR Special Event - Annual Benefit Luncheon

COAR Peace Mission * 4395 Rocky River Drive * Cleveland, Ohio 44135-2569 * (216) 252-5572

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2006
COAR Annual Benefit Project

Guest Speaker: Edgar Tolentino

Edgar Tolentino came to COAR as a war orphan, 12 years old, in February 1983. He stayed at COAR until he was 15. Of those years he remembers Fr. Ken as a father whose stern love saved him from a life of bitterness and delinquency. With the love and care of the Sisters, he also grew to understand how blessed he was to have found COAR and feels the call to give back in service for what he was given. In his initial e-mail to our office, he wrote, “Subject: one lucky person who lived at COAR -- Hello my name is Edgar Tolentino, for a very long time I have tried to find anything related to COAR [on the Internet], because I lived in the community for about two years, but it was yesterday I came across the name of the school. I'm very grateful to Father Ken Meyers for all the advice and guidance he gave us all. I lost my family because of the war and I found a refuge at COAR. I'm also very grateful to all the people in this country who made contributions making possible our education, food, clothing and all the things we got while we stayed at COAR. Just today while going thru this web site I learned that father Ken passed away and it made me very sad. But I know he's with God and watching all his kids from COAR. I have lived in this country for the past 15 years and I never forgot all the things I learned from this experience at COAR. I would like to help in any way possible.

The only picture Edgar has of himself from his childhood in El Salvador, from his years at COAR, 1983-1986.

I'm aware the 25th anniversary is coming and would like to include my testimony if possible so people can feel their sponsorship does help a lot. Thank you so much. I'm currently working on letting my co-workers know about this and I will find a way to try to help with this mission. Please contact me.” After two years with an older step sister Edgar immigrated to the US to escape the war. He is now a US citizen, raising a family in San Leandro, CA. Edgar gave a mission appeal for COAR in Los Angeles in August.

Purpose

If a Salvadoran has English - he or she has a job. Add to that computer skills and the access to the wider world that another language brings and COAR's emphasis on learning English is obvious.

Refitting COAR's computer lab with 20 computers, dedicated primarily to learning English is this year's project. We estimate that we can achieve this - hardware, software, networking, and consulting - with 20 computers at $1,000 each.

There are not enough teachers like Rafael, above left, to meet the demand for English teachers nor can we pay them a competitive wage. Computers will partially solve this problem.