One area of GATE Charitable
Giving is called Cherie’s Kids, which is a Youth Leadership Formation Program
begun in 2008 in honor of Cherie Pierson-Smith, a Philadelphia woman who loved
and served youth during her lifetime.
Below is a letter explaining the
genesis of the program and the effect of this program on the lives of
Salvadoran youth. We invite you to be as generous as you can in supporting this
transformative work.
Marie Des Jarlais, FSPA
Dear Friends,
In February 2009, Theresa
O’Connor went to El Salvador with GATE, a non-profit humanitarian organization
that provides immersion experiences for folks from the U.S. and Canada to Latin
America. GATE also collects & distributes monies for the support of water
projects, social justice reform, scholarships and youth education programs.
The work she is involved in
with GATE is a project named “Cherie’s Kids”, a youth leadership formation
program. The purpose of “Cherie’s Kids” is to raise money that will be used to
sponsor workshops and follow up groups for at risk teens living in poverty in
El Salvador. The weekend workshops will teach them leadership, self empowerment
and life skills. The teens then go back into their villages to form and
facilitate groups with pre-teens (8-14), to teach and embody what they have
learned. It provides them with the tools to develop spiritual and social
values that enable the youth to be of service in their communities and become
mentors and agents of positive change within their social structure. Without
these leadership training experiences and support for the building of healthy
peer groups, the youth have a greater risk of falling into addiction, gangs and
living on the streets without hope for a better life or future.
Theresa
and Carlos Garcia co-founded “Cherie’s Kids” in 2008 in honor of Theresa’s good
friend Cherie Pierson-Smith. Before her untimely passing in 2007 (due to
illness), Cherie expressed her great love for children in the way she was able
to transform the hearts, spirits and lives of many young people. The program
was launched in 2008 and four weekends were held with a total 125 teens attending
and following up with next steps.
Part of Theresa’s experience
in El Salvador this February was to record footage of the youth leadership
program and to do interviews with the teens, in order to make a documentary.
This will then be taken into schools and churches as part of a presentation
here in the US. In this way we will be able to link the children and adults
here with our sisters and brothers in El Salvador.
We invite you to contribute
to this life changing leadership work by making a tax deductable
donation. Your donation is 100% applied to the youth program through
GATE. It costs $40 per teen to attend a weekend and $1600 for each weekend
program of about 45 teens. You may consider sponsoring a whole weekend, which
is a powerful way to honor the important, life changing people in our lives,
whether they are still living or have passed on. Information about those being
honored can be forwarded to Carlos to share with the youth, giving them yet
another example of how one person’s life can positively affect and support the
lives of many others.
To make a tax deductable
donation via paypal, click on the link below, or write check payable to GATE,
on memo line write Cherie’s Kids. Mail to: GATE Charitable Giving, 912 Market
Street: La Crosse, WI 54601
We thank you and appreciate
your loving support of the work we are doing. With each life that is changed,
we are that much closer to improving and uniting our global family.
With much joy, gratitude
and love,
Theresa
