Luis Calvo
Luis joined the team in September of 2021. Luis is from La Carpio and has 15 years of experience teaching math and serving in the community as a youth pastor and worship. Luis oversees giveDIGNITY's student sponsorship program, youth group, and discipleship initiatives. He is also in charge of leading the volunteer team and coaching them on how to effectively serve others. In addition, Luis has many artistic talents and teaches music and theater, mobilizing a group to serve at camp each year with excellence. He is a dynamo and a fantastic communicator!
María José Jarquín Ortiz
María José joined the team in early 2022 as a tutor and literacy expert. At only 21 years old, she is a go-getter and already serves with such maturity. She oversees our literacy initiatives and library, as well as teaching math, tutoring, and serving with the youth group. She brings strong organizational and planning skills to the team, and is always ready to learn something new with enthusiasm. The best thing about her is that she's so sweet and gentle!
Jorge Arias Rodriguez
Jorge joined our team in May 2022 as an English teacher. He studied English at the national technical institute in Costa Rica, and has his hand in real estate and business. But he also has a love for serving the marginalized and meeting the needs of those who live in La Carpio. He teaches English classes at the high school level and serves with youth group and camp initiatives. Jorge is hilarious and always keeps things lively.
Adriana Guerrero Tapia
Adriana is both our neighbor in La Carpio and a team member that provides cooking and cleaning services at the ministry. She is a faithful servant, working hard in mostly “invisible” roles to support the ministry’s effectiveness. Her three daughters have all been in our sponsorship program, passing the benefit along from oldest to middle (both graduated now) to youngest.
Volunteers
The giveDIGNITY team also relies on the help of dozens of volunteers who fill roles such as tutors, ESL and Jobs for Life teachers, library attendants, bible study leaders, child care during classes and events, youth group leaders, and community organizers. We believe in mobilizing people and resources within the community to solve its problems, and prefer to use more local volunteers than foreigners. Without investment by those within the community, we would quickly go astray and not accomplish nearly as much as we can by their sides.
Seth and Andrea Sears
Seth and Andrea Sears founded giveDIGNITY in 2012 after three years of serving in the community of La Carpio as missionaries. During their first few years of working in the community, they saw handouts given, dependencies created, and unhealthy assumptions by outsiders about what poverty is and what the poor need. These dynamics resulted in superficial attempts to help that didn’t transform lives. Worst of all, people were trained to feel “less than” and helpless, stripped of the dignity endowed to them by God as His image bearers.
With that in mind, they started a new kind of ministry, which seeks to serve the poor in strategic ways that empower them to break the cycle of poverty through long-term holistic development instead of short-term aid. giveDIGNITY strives to partner with community members to utilize their resources and efforts to solve their problems. In 2022, the Sears transitioned day-to-day management to a local team (see above) and relocated to the U.S. to continue to serve in executive leadership.
With that in mind, they started a new kind of ministry, which seeks to serve the poor in strategic ways that empower them to break the cycle of poverty through long-term holistic development instead of short-term aid. giveDIGNITY strives to partner with community members to utilize their resources and efforts to solve their problems. In 2022, the Sears transitioned day-to-day management to a local team (see above) and relocated to the U.S. to continue to serve in executive leadership.
Our Non-Profit
giveDIGNITY is a ministry partner of Perception Funding, a registered 501c3 non-profit organization. Perception has a great team that is passionate about missions and highly skilled at running the business side of ministry. You may make tax-deductible contributions to support our work through Give.Transform, an online giving resource of Perception Funding.
To learn more about Perception Funding, visit www.perceptionfunding.org
To learn more about Perception Funding, visit www.perceptionfunding.org
