Twice a year our US staff packs up and heads south to share with CoEd supporters the beauty of Guatemala and the impact they’re having on its beautiful people. This summer’s tour season might, in fact, have been the largest one ever! Almost 80 people joined us on the Helping Hands, Snapshot, and Heritage tours in July and August. As you can imagine, we have no shortage of stories and photos from those trips, so here are our top five.

FIVE
Our first-ever Heritage Tour, designed specifically for families connected to Guatemala through adoption, was a huge success.

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Guess what, everyone? This summer we’ll be piloting a NEW KIND OF TOUR to Guatemala and we are SO EXCITED for our first run! In our 20 years of leading trips to Guatemala, we’ve had plenty of adoptive families on board, but we are thrilled to now offer these families a special tour designed just for them. Our new Heritage Tour will offer families and individuals who are connected to Guatemala through adoption a unique opportunity to reconnect with the country alongside other families that are doing the same.

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Like Christmas or summer vacation, we eagerly anticipate the February tour season each year. We spend a jam packed few weeks with supporters delivering books, inaugurating computer labs, reading with students, and meeting scholarship students. Bus rides into the countryside give us a chance to build deep relationships with you and truly know how deep your generosity goes. It’s always a memorable month! Since we just wrapped up another February tour season, we want to share with you some of the highlights from the month.

And maybe—just maybe—it will inspire you to join us this summer! 

ONE
Scholarship sponsors and students were reunited, sharing in the most affectionate of hugs.

Now just try to tell me you don’t want to come meet your scholarship student.

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If you’ve never been on a Cooperative for Education project tour, you’ve probably got a vague notion of what it’s like–we visit schools, interact with students, learn about the programs, and experience some Guatemalan culture along the way. But as this month’s tour participants expressed, tour is SO MUCH BETTER than you could ever imagine.

“What did we do this week?” participant Charlene Brush asked (rhetorically) on the last day. “We were alive.”

So without further ado we would like to present–

The Top 6 Moments from Our August Snapshot Tour

(A Visual Journey)

6) This little Culture of Reading Program student gave us ALL of the hugs and it was magical:

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Are we the only ones who are sad that we’re not still in Guatemala with everyone? The schools! The kids! The sunny weather and adventures!

While we may have to wait a few months before heading back to Guate, we can reminisce all we want about the tours we just finished. Without further ado, here are our top 10 tour moments of February 2016:

10. An internationally renowned artist, who also happens to be a teacher at the CORP school we were inaugurating, gave a beautiful painting to the sponsors as a token of the school’s gratitude.
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Remember our new friend Carol Cain? She traveled to Guatemala with us on the Snapshot Tour and has gone and given us some love from her corner of the internet. Carol writes,

“I met principals and teachers who go without getting paid for months, yet come to work everyday to educate the children who count on their guidance to move forward. I saw excitement in children’s eyes as they opened the pages of a newly donated book and read the words for the first time. I heard students both still in the programs and as graduates, talk about how CoEd changed their lives and made their dreams come true. And I saw CoEd leaders, many of them former students in the programs, as well as active members in the communities where they live and work in, talk about the pride they have in their work and their passion for the same.”

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Quaint cobblestone streets, splashes of brightly painted homes, a feeling of stepping into an era long past—that is the beauty of Antigua, Guatemala, and we’re offering you the chance to make this dream world your reality for one entire week, from July 28-August 2, 2015.

A World Heritage Site, Antigua is home to some of the best restaurants and most captivating sights in Guatemala. It’s also a short distance from many of the schools in CoEd’s programs. So join us for this summer’s Snapshot Tour and experience the charm of Antigua while serving in nearby rural schools. (more…)

If you’re one of the hundreds of people who have traveled to Guatemala with us before, you don’t need us to tell you, but there is nothing like a Project Tour to help you stay young at heart (I mean when was the last time you were on a swing set?).  We like to think we’re a pretty fun bunch of travelers and bring the funk.  But the proof is in the pudding, is it not?

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“Look, the students are carrying CoEd books!” a volunteer shouted.  As our bus wound through the rural community of Jilotepeque, nestled in the highlands of Guatemala, we  grabbed our cameras and crowded towards the windows to check out the scene.

Action shot!

Much to the delight of these Project Tour travelers, we drove through Jilotepeque as the students were carrying their books home for the day!

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April is Donor Appreciation Month here at CoEd and we’re so happy to introduce you to a few stellar supporters over the next few weeks both here and on Facebook!   Today we’d like you to meet Patty Milner.  

Patty is a volunteer extraordinaire for CoEd!

Patty has been a dedicated volunteer for more than two years after hearing about us through the Stuff You Should Know podcasts and seeing the programs up close and personal on a Snapshot Tour. She’s used her astounding expertise in education research for volunteer projects (more…)