About
The folks at HondurasChildren have a unique set of skills and a variety of experiences supporting humanitarian projects. We are all volunteers!
As we collaborate to create viable opportunities for children in Honduras, we welcome volunteers, sponsors and cooperation with other organizations with similar goals.
Our work with children . . .
We want our children to make good choices, so we help them distinguish between fact, opinion, interpretation, and judgment.
We encourage creative problem solving – - so we inspire children to use their imaginations.
We support our children as critical thinkers, so we invite them to ask questions and evaluate potential answers.
We expect our children to become engaged citizens – - so we hold them accountable for their actions.
We wish for our children to live in a peaceful world, so we model solving conflicts without violence.
An introduction –
Karen Barto handles Donor Relations for HondurasChildren. She manages our Sponsor Program, connecting sponsors with the children they wish to support and updating sponsors periodically with pictures and notes about the children. She coordinates with our in-Honduras volunteers to facilitate communication from the children to their sponsors several times each year. Motivated by a desire to help orphaned and neglected children, Karen began sponsoring children herself as a way to provide financial aid for children in need as well as emotional support for the individual child. From past experience she has seen firsthand how rewarding child sponsorship can be for both sponsor and child, and she believes her volunteer position with HondurasChildren is a great opportunity to bring joy to others while making a real difference in the lives of those who need it the most. Click HERE to view children in need of a sponsor. Contact Karen at sponsor@honduraschildren.org.
Eve Horowitz coordinates our international volunteers and is focusing on 
development for HondurasChildren. She began visiting Honduras in 1992 and initially considered sponsoring a child as a learning experience for her own two kids. As she learned more about neglected children in Honduras, it soon became a larger mission as she realized how her actions and support could create immediate, tangible improvement in their lives. Eve brings a blend of creative and operational strengths to HondurasChildren. With 20+ years of management & leadership experience, she is an accomplished commercial writer and specializes in the area of training and development. She has recently completed a certificate in fundraising as part of an organizational development masters-degree program at the University of Pennsylvania and has background in Elementary Education. Eve travels to La Ceiba and Guanaja several times each year and views her involvement with HondurasChildren as, “a wish come true.” Contact Eve at volunteer@honduraschildren.org.
A message from Charlie and Amalia Kirkhum . . .
We have succeeded. We have been in Honduras for three years now, we have met a lot of wonderful people here and we have been blessed.
When we moved here we were not sure exactly what we were going to do. All we knew was that we wanted to work with children. We quickly found out that it doesn’t take much to get started working with kids! At first we just got to know them and every night more and more children came to our house. A little later on we started showing movies and boy, things really took off after that!
We have now completed our Kinder School and Feeding Center. We started it in October 2007 and we completed it in October 2008. Out of this time we were in the states for about five months. God has really blessed us in getting this project completed in such a short period of time. Also, thanks to generous donors Lee D., David R. & John K., we had the money to complete the project. The City of El Porvenir donated windows for the school. Thank you Renee.
We officially opened our doors for the children on Jan 16, 2009. On the first day we had 20 children, mostly Grandma Elvia’s grandkids. They were so happy to be going to school.
We have found so many families without food, clothing and shelter. We have found Grandmas here with many, many children and the Grandmas need a lot of help. We are feeding these children rice donated by Kids Against Hunger along with beans and powdered milk that is shipped here by a great guy named Karl who lives in Wisconsin.
We thank God for pointing us in this direction where there is such a need.
Sincerely,
Charlie and Amalia Kirkhum
Contact Charlie & Amalia at charlie@honduraschildren.org.
Thanks to our friends . . .
We are very grateful to our friend Dave Riley and Amigos of Honduras for their ongoing support and advice as we grow into an official U.S. non-profit. Amigos of Honduras is a 501c3 non-profit and acts as an ‘umbrella’ for HondurasChildren. Dave Riley and Amigos are also volunteers, have no paid staff and virtually no overhead. They are based in Centerville, Utah and do humanitarian work in the Comayagua area of Honduras. Amigos is not affiliated with any church or religious organization. Check out their work at http://amigosofhonduras.org/.
We have enjoyed hosting groups from Peacework and are excited to continue collaborating on community development projects in El Porvenir. The Peacework Village Network directly matches the goals of community leaders and organizations with the reources and expertise of students and faculty from institutions of higher education. Heather Burke directs the Peacework projects in El Porvenir and is also one of our child sponsors.
Jessie Berens checks references for our international volunteers. Jessie herself 
volunteered in Honduras in April 2008 to assist in a Campesino kinder in La Bomba which is about 30 minutes from La Ceiba. Jessie now volunteers from her home in the U.S. by reviewing the references for our incoming volunteers. Jessie says, “Upon my return from Honduras, I wanted to continue helping the organization and children in any way possible. I have done so by checking references to help ensure that our volunteers are qualified to support the needs of the children. This also serves as a preliminary background review to optimize the protection of the children and other volunteers.” Jessie hopes to return to Honduras to volunteer again very soon!
Our friend Karl Ralian has spent most of his working life in the food distribution industry, currently as President and CEO of Waukesha All-Temp Storage, LLC., a multi temperature food storage and distribution facility in Wisconsin. Karl has sent numerous containers of food, clothing and medical supplies to Honduras in the past five years in support of several humanitarian groups, including ours. As a food packaging satellite location for Feeding Children International, he plans to continue to suport HondurasChildren with donations of Kids Against Hunger specially formulated rice-soy meals for our Kinder and Grandma’s programs. We appreciate Karl’s ongoing efforts on behalf of HondurasChildren.
La Ceiba, HONDURAS