Collaboration

Collaborating for Good: Comité Salvadoreño El Piche Apr 30, 2017

This is how you change the world. Brick by brick. Project by project. One practical, purposeful step after another. The all-volunteer nonprofit organization, Comité Salvadoreño El Piche, has a long history of successfully implementing humanitarian projects in impoverished areas of El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. That experience and expertise has laid the groundwork for one of their most ambitious efforts to date – the building of a state-of-the-art K-12 educational center for children from more than a dozen villages in rural El Salvador struggling to rise above chronic poverty, gang violence and devastating natural disasters.

Earthquakes have destroyed many of the teaching tools at El Piche

The time is now

The land has been donated. The plans have been drawn. With more than $800,000 of the $1,857,000 needed to complete the school already raised, Comité Salvadoreño El Piche is launching an all-out campaign this month to reach the funding finish line and begin construction on a project that will improve the lives of generations of students and forever lift the fortunes of a beleaguered community.

For donors, the building of the new institute in the La Unión area of El Salvador offers an opportunity to have an immediate and lasting impact on children in an often-overlooked corner of the world. A limited number of sponsorships are still available to permanently name classrooms in the new building – a legacy of caring that will continue to resonate far into the future.

A “good” investment

All donations to El Piche, large or small, are carefully stewarded to reach their intended targets. The organization has always been run entirely by volunteers, keeping administrative costs to a minimum. The new educational center in El Salvador will be a public school, free to every student. The costs of maintaining and staffing the school will be borne by the public school system, with no ongoing financial obligations accruing to Comité Salvadoreño El Piche.El Piche has every reason to be optimistic about the prospects for its latest initiative. From the organization’s founding in 1995 by a handful of concerned citizens, El Piche has grown into a widely respected international humanitarian organization with an enviable track record of “concrete” achievements large and small: Equipping ambulances and hospitals; building health and community centers; piping in clean water; buying computers and educational tools; building roads and community infrastructure; supplying uniforms and sports equipment; building playgrounds and providing musical instruments. The list is long and varied, but the result is always the same. Renewed and sustained hope.



A local approach, a global effect

The work carried out by El Piche is distinguished by the fact that every project is conceived and initiated by local communities – and then supported by the organization’s resources and expertise. One of Comité Salvadoreño El Piche’s foundational beliefs is that lasting change is brought about by empowering local communities to determine their own needs and aspirations, to make the decisions that directly impact their lives, and to participate in the process of shaping their own destiny.

This is an approach based on a deep respect for and understanding of the people El Piche serves. While this process is inherently and idiosyncratically local, it is also a model for global community improvement efforts. By focusing carefully and thoughtfully on precisely where you are, there are no limits to where you can go.

A community of support

Legistics has supported El Piche’s efforts for many years. After touring the existing earthquake-damaged school in El Salvador and meeting with the country’s Minister of the Interior on a recent fact-finding mission, Legistics CEO Phil Frengs became an early and enthusiastic supporter of the new school project. Legistics signed on as a sponsor, and the company bought and donated computers for a new computer lab.


Legistics President/CEO Phil Frengs at the El Piche community center in El Salvador, where he met the kids and witnessed the earthquake damage to their school.

“I recently had the opportunity to travel to El Salvador, which put my life’s experiences into perspective,” Phil said. “The people of El Salvador know all too well the challenges of food, shelter, medicine and education. Through small gestures we can reach out, support and help those who are neglected and in need. I invite you to join me in making this world a better place.”

With the support of like-minded visionaries and donors in this last phase of fundraising, Comité Salvadoreño El Piche hopes to break ground on their inspiring new K-12 institute in 2018. To find out more about how you can help El Piche change the world one carefully conceived project at a time, please visit www.elpiche.org

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