Our Projects
“The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love.”
- Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, April 1, 1964
Casa Hogar (Girls’ Home)
Thirty miles from the parish in Picota, down a winding jungle road, the Working Sisters of the Heart of Jesus operate a casa hogar—a foster home for girls—in the town of Shamboyacu. Many of these young women come from remote villages where access to high school education is nearly impossible due to distance and poverty. Some are orphaned, while others come from broken or abusive homes.
In this safe and nurturing environment, the Sisters provide far more than shelter. They offer the girls a high school education, teach essential life skills, and guide them in the faith—helping them grow in virtue and dignity.
Each school year, which begins in March, several girls from the poorest families rely on scholarships to attend school and live at the home. A full scholarship costs $610 per year, while a partial scholarship is $300. In addition to covering tuition and living expenses, the Sisters face ongoing needs: repairing or replacing school equipment like computers, maintaining the home itself, and bridging the financial gap they face each month.
To help sustain this vital ministry, we are seeking $1,000 in monthly support. These funds will allow the Sisters to continue offering scholarships, maintain the home, and meet the daily needs of the girls entrusted to their care.
Your generosity helps ensure that these young women receive not only an education, but also the love, formation, and hope they deserve. Thank you for considering a monthly or one-time gift to support this beautiful work.
You can support Casa Hogar by clicking the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
Comedor (Sacred Heart Soup Kitchen)
In the heart of Picota, where the parish is located, a dedicated community of Salesian sisters operates the Sacred Heart of Jesus Soup Kitchen. Six days a week, they serve nourishing lunches to anyone in need—charging only a fraction of the cost of a typical restaurant meal. And for those unable to pay, they offer meals entirely free of charge.
This ministry is sustained solely by Divine Providence. In recent years, however, rising costs have made it increasingly difficult to continue feeding the poorest without charge. The sisters have had to raise the cost of each plate from $0.75 to approximately $1.25, a change that has impacted their ability to serve the most vulnerable.
Recognizing the growing needs of nearby communities, the parish pastor invited the sisters to extend their outreach to a settlement of Venezuelan migrants, many of whom live in extreme poverty. Though eager to respond, the sisters lacked the resources—until generous donors from the United States stepped in. With their support, the soup kitchen began delivering up to 136 plates of food to those most in need, including many who received meals free of charge.
To sustain and expand this vital work, we are seeking $1,000 in monthly support. These funds will allow the sisters to continue feeding the poorest members of the community at no cost and to bring meals directly to those who cannot reach the soup kitchen. Your generosity will help ensure that no one is turned away hungry. Together, we can be instruments of God’s Divine Providence.
You can support the Comedor (Sacred Heart Soup Kitchen) by clicking the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
Community Center
Our community in the town of Tingo de Ponasa is blessed to have its own chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is present. However, the church community doesn’t have a gathering space to host youth group meetings and events, catechesis classes, or on-going formation. Neither is there a suitable place to host mission trips. Currently, our mission trips are hosted in the main town of Picota, which is 16 km away on a very rough and slow-going dirt road.
We are in the process of taking an existing one-room building that’s located on the same road as the church and adding on to it. It will have five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a kitchen and large dining room. It will serve as a community center for the needs of the church community as well as a place to host up to 24 people coming on mission trips.
We are still in need of $20,000 in funds to see this project to completion. We are grateful for your generous donations!
You can support the Community Center by clicking the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
Food, Personal Care Items, and Medicine
Join us in our mission to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate by contributing to the purchase of food, personal care items, and medicine for the poorest families in the Amazon region of Peru. These items are prohibitively expensive, as the average wage for a manual laboroer is $16 a day. Be assured that 100% of your donation goes directly to support our area families who are most in need! Options include:
Food Packs: Consider sponsoring a specific food pack tailored to meet the typical needs of a family: rice, beans, spaghetti, oil, milk, coffee, sugar, potatoes, onions, and garlic. One food pack costs $40.
Formula and Diapers (Infants) or Ensure and Depends (Elderly): Requests for these items are very common. One can of formula/Ensure costs $30-40; one package of diapers/Depends costs $16-20.
Medication: Every week, people reach out to us asking for help with buying medicine. The medical insurance in Peru doesn’t often cover the cost of the prescription medicines. Many presicretion medicines cost $30 or more.
You can sponsor food packets, personal care items, or medicines by clicking the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
Help with Medical Operations
Another very common request to help with a pollada, which is a fundraiser to cover the cost of an operation at a private clinic. In Peru’s socialized healthcare system, most people have medical insurance and can use it at the public hospitals, however, it’s common to have to wait a long time to receive the care they need. Sometimes urgent appointments are still a month out, or people who need surgery are told to come back another time because others are in greater need. Because of this, families will resort to private hospitals or clinics for prompt and better care — but insurance does not cover anything done at a private clinic.
At a pollada, families sell plates of chicken and yucca at an inflated price for raised money. The local townspeople buy these meals knowing that the money is going to help someone they know. You can help by purchasing the chickens needed for the pollada, which enables the family to make a larger profit from their fundraiser. A typical pollada is 50 chickens, which costs roughly $270.
You can sponsor chickens for a pollada by clicking the Donate button at the bottom of the page.
“Be mindful of the poor.” - Galatians 2:10
The Francis Institute invites individuals and parishes to assist us in our mission. Your donations can be targeted to one of our priority projects, individual missionaries, food, medical needs, and more.