Children in the Mary’s Hope program enjoy learning to play chess. Besides providing for basic needs, the program aims to help these children simply to be kids, using structured play that helps develop their reasoning skills and cognitive development. (Photos provided) GREENSBORO — A life-changing mission trip grounded in grace and prayer led to the birth of Mary’s Hope, a source of help to children and their families in Guatemala.
“God leads us where we need to go,” said Julie Ray, founder of Mary’s Hope and a fifth-grade teacher at St. Pius X School. In 2016, Ray embarked on a mission trip to Guatemala City to volunteer for Dories Promise Orphanage.
“We fed 400 kids at a soup kitchen and gave food baskets out in the community, walking from home to home,” she recalled. Ray witnessed generations of poverty; fathers risked their lives to find things to recycle for cash just to feed their families. “There’s got to be more we can do,” she thought.
So Mary’s Hope Inc. was created to help the residents of Santa Maria de Jesus, a poor village where families lived in one-room homes with no electricity and no running water. The central task was clear: education.
“Education really is the key to helping children,” Ray said. Students attend Mary’s Hope two days a week, with the grades taking turns. “Because of COVID-19, we were considered licensed as a school because no other schools were open,” said Ray. The students received credit each year and moved up in grades.
Most Mary’s Hope students are born into extreme poverty, where children are needed to help with household chores and have very few enrichment experiences outside the home. “We had to teach them how to be kids, teach them how to play and teach them what ice cream was,” she said.
Mary’s Hope has a broad reach on the ground at Santa Maria de Jesus, said Mary Cowan Lehman, MSW, CFSW, the organization’s operations coordinator. “We really focus on wrapping around the entire child,” not only through educational services, but also through supportive services and enrichment programs, Lehman said. Mary’s Hope reaches the entire child while providing a loving and stable school environment, she said.
“The educational program, our central task, supports the learning of our 60 children from the Santa Maria de Jesus community,” said Claudia Maria Roncal Duque, project manager in Guatemala. The school meets year-round, except in November and December.
But Mary’s Hope is more than just a school. “We celebrate the end of each school year with a certificate and end-of-year experiences,” said Ray. “Rather than giving gifts, our project manager, Claudia, provides experiences like visiting museums, gardens, the zoo, day outings, ice cream and more.” Mary’s Hope also is supporting a young woman to go to college by helping with transportation, books and food. “She wants to be a professional chef,” said Ray.
Besides the school and academics program, Mary’s Hope helps mothers and infants through its Family Wellness Program, Lehman said. It provided emergency food assistance during the worst of the pandemic, and this Mother’s Day, Mary’s Hope provided food to more than 75 mothers and their families. The Family
Wellness Program provides diapers, baby items, over-the-counter medicine, doctor’s care and audiology to mothers and babies.
Mary’s Hope students attend on Saturdays for extracurricular activities such as the MHI Chess Club. They train for eight weeks, then compete with neighboring villages, Ray said. “We want to make sure we are providing enrichment that’s ‘play’ for children, but also educational structured play,” Lehman explained.
Something like chess is ideal because it develops spacial reasoning, cognitive development and fine motor skills.
“We are very much focused on child-centered services,” Lehman said. “We really keep a close eye on creating lasting change, transformational change that will pull entire generations, in time, out of poverty through education.”
“We have great support from Holy Family, Our Lady of Grace Church and St. Pius X,” Ray said. “On Valentine’s Day, St. Pius X School and MHI students exchanged valentines via Zoom. Maybe one day, St. Pius X students will compete with the Mary’s Hope Chess Club online.”
— Georgianna Penn, Correspondent