Author: Noel Miller-Executive Residential Director & Blair Higbee-Teresa House Residential Director
“It was so rewarding to have blisters on my hands, paint in my hair, and dirt all over from head to toe. These external factors printed my efforts in doing the right things. I learned the power of love and discipline. There I saw hope for my future and the steps to take to get there.”
New Haven Student
Some of our New Haven students and families recently traveled near Chiapas, Mexico to live for a week on site of a local orphanage. There, they participated in daily projects of service for the center, enjoyed the local cuisine and enjoyed field trips venturing out into the local area.
Some of the service projects included: preparing the soil for their garden, painting some walls around the orphanage and weeding along the outside of their campus. The best part was getting to spend time with the kids. They played games, took pictures, and on the last night had a ‘Fiesta’ for them including lots of pizza, laughs, and pinatas.
In the later part of each day they got to explore the local area of San Cristobal, enjoy a river cruise, and even got to take some of the kids from the orphanage with them to the local zoo!
After hours of playing soccer with the kids, and his daughter; one dad shared, “it was the most fun he has had in years and that he was so happy he could have that moment with his daughter”.
We are so happy to be in a workplace that values service, hard work and adventure because this trip was truly life changing for us and for our families.
About Casa Hogar
Casa Hogar is a Mexican orphanage founded by Elizabeth Noguera back in 1993. It began by her simply taking children into her home who had been abused, neglected and abandoned. Quickly her home could not accommodate the need, and with little aide from the local government, she formally established Casa Hogar, and became the legal guardian and provider of love, food, education, technical training and safety for hundreds of children. Currently the orphanage has 106 children ranging from ages 1-18.
Embark has partnered with Casa Hogar since 2016 providing donations from employees, and service trips to help improve the infrastructure and services that Casa Hogar provides to their children. It been several years since we have been able to do international trips with our students and families. We are so happy we have been able to reinstitute them and hope that each of our students will get to experience the wonderful work, love and healing that “Mama Liz” has created in her community.
To me, Casa Hogar showed how you can still make the most out of life even when you’ve been put in awful situations. The people who work there are dedicating their lives to helping kids and they do a great job at making it fun while doing so. I loved seeing the kids laughing and smiling and I loved how even just being there for 5 days made such a difference for these kids.”
New Haven Student
