When people think of humanitarian work, they often picture food drives, construction projects, or educational programs — but the true power behind every successful initiative is much simpler: people helping people.
At the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation (CRHF), we have seen firsthand that one person can change a life. Sometimes forever.
From university interns and medical brigades to families traveling from abroad or Costa Ricans seeking to give back, volunteers arrive with one intention:
“I want to make a difference.”
What many don’t expect is that the experience changes them just as deeply.
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Stories of Transformation
We have welcomed thousands of volunteers over the years — teachers, doctors, engineers, retirees, teenagers, and people who simply felt called to help.
They’ve helped with:
Food distribution for families experiencing homelessness in San José
Health education, nutrition support, and medical care in Indigenous communities
Early childhood enrichment and literacy programs in La Carpio
Construction and repairs for families living in unsafe housing
Mentorship, emotional support, and therapy-based play programs for youth
Every act — whether teaching a child to read, cleaning a wound, or building a safe place to sleep — becomes part of a lasting story of dignity and opportunity.
One volunteer said it best:
“I came to help others, but I left with a new understanding of humanity, compassion, and myself.”
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Where Volunteers Make the Greatest Impact
💜 La Carpio: A Community of Strength
Once labeled one of Costa Rica’s most marginalized neighborhoods, La Carpio is now a place of resilience because people showed up — again, and again, and again.
Support includes access to healthcare, education, culturally respectful development, emergency supplies, and constructing safe housing.
🏙 San José’s Homeless Population
Volunteers help distribute meals, hygiene kits, and warm clothing — and most importantly, share moments of human connection with individuals forgotten by society.
👶 Early Childhood Development & Education Programs
Play-based learning, Montessori-inspired environments, and emotional literacy programs help break intergenerational poverty.
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Volunteering Creates Lifelong Advocates
Some volunteers return every year. Others go home and raise funds, sponsor children, or start programs in their own communities.
Why?
Because once you’ve seen what dignity looks like in action — you don’t forget it.
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Why Donors Make This Possible
While volunteers give their time and heart, donors provide what keeps the work going:
📖 educational supplies 🥦 food for families in crisis 🏥 medical support 👷🏽♀️ construction materials 📝 staff and logistics resources
Together — donors and volunteers form a bridge of compassion.
And that bridge changes lives.
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❤️ Want to Create Impact?
Whether you give time, resources, or funding, your contribution becomes part of someone else’s story of hope.
It has been a very busy 2025. Halfway through the year already, and we have a lot to tell! We would like to start by dedicating this newsletter to our supporters who continue to provide us with the resources to carry out our programs. During these very challenging times for everyone, your unfettered moral, financial, and volunteer support shows that you are the brave souls who rise above and provide a safety net during difficult moments. Thank you.
We’ve had a busy summer volunteer program!
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🌱 Annual Fundraiser Update
At the end of our 2025 1st quarter newsletter, we announced our annual fundraiser. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, we canceled the event. We refunded ticket fees to those who purchased them, and we are grateful to the Marriott Hotel for waiving charges.
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📚 Youth Development & Education
We continued our work in youth development, providing tutoring and supplemental support that aligns with the public school curriculum, including English, math, science, history, art, and theater.
We were very excited to finally receive the computers for our computer lab! Donated by our dear friend Julio, we can now offer introductory classes in Word, Excel, and typing to our beneficiaries. This program, led by Marisol, is helping us expand our capacity-building operations. The computer lab is housed in the Centro Modelo building next to the police station.
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🎨 Volunteer Support & Improvements
Spring break brought a group of kind and caring volunteers to our centers in La Carpio. They helped with various tasks, including painting the Centro Modelo and the police station.
The Centro Modelo and all our centers received much care during this time. Spring cleaning brought a fresh look for our beneficiaries and volunteers to enjoy. We cleared out two storage closets, creating better spaces for Drs. Joe and Patrick and friends to carry out their chiropractic work.
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👵 Abuelas & Community Theatre
The abuelas continue to put on new and creative plays sharing their stories. These performances inspire and provide emotional support to the senior population of La Carpio.
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📲 Social Media Initiatives
Last year we featured Success Stories from the Field, highlighting how our work creates sustainable solutions. This year, we’ve launched a new series on Early Childhood Development, aiming to create a more educational and inspiring social media space. Don’t forget to like, share, and tag us!
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🛏 Bunk Bed Program
We continue to provide bunk beds through one of our critical needs programs. While demand is not what it was when we started 20+ years ago, we still find urgent situations in La Carpio and with new arrivals that require improved sleeping conditions. Thanks to all the volunteers who participate—a simple act can change a life.
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🫱 Volunteer Education & Partnerships
As part of our secondary mission, we work with volunteers to show them the realities we live every day and foster greater sensitivity to our beneficiary populations. We demonstrate our model of development and discuss the challenges faced by La Carpio, Costa Rica, and beyond.
We were excited to welcome for our summer volunteer program: • Franz and Elizabeth, who brought us several volunteer groups this year that have greatly contributed to youth development. Their ongoing support has been vital in enriching the educational experiences of our children. • A wonderful group of middle school volunteers from the European School. We thank them for their fundraising efforts, donations, and the work they did painting the computer lab and police station, as well as supporting youth development. • Jacob, a pre-med individual volunteer, is sorting through years of medical records from our former clinic. His work helps preserve our legacy while gaining valuable insight for his medical career. • Friends from Central Connecticut State University, who contributed to painting efforts and learned about our community. • Texas Tech honors students, who shadowed our collaborators across food, shelter, health, education, and sports programs. They also gave a professional presentation to their fellow scholars about our main pillars of food, shelter, and health.
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💛 Health, Wellness, & Relief
Our health education program has been a key focus this quarter. Led by Gail and Steven, these sessions provide preventative healthcare education, teaching about: • body systems and organ function • healthy nutrition, including using smoothies for better health • the benefits of honey and other nutritious foods • hormones related to menopause and other health concerns
Steven creates helpful visuals, and together they answer participants’ questions to promote better health awareness.
Our visiting doctors program returned, and alongside it we distributed hygiene kits to reinforce the importance of self-care and prevention.
Our partnership with Visit.org resulted in the donation of 50 teddy bears, which have already been distributed to our regular students, and the hygiene kits that complemented our health outreach efforts.
Our elderly population especially benefited from the interaction with the yoga teachers from Lakshmi Rising, who helped them gently stretch dormant muscles, bringing comfort and vitality.
Our chiropractor friends Joe, Patrick and their spouses Nicolle and Ericka, have been a delight to host as part of our family volunteer program. They have supported youth development and the bunk bed program.
🪶 Casa Quetzal
We have some very exciting news coming for Casa Quetzal. We have been a bit quiet on this, but we continue to open our doors to the world from our Casa Quetzal Conference and Retreat Center.
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💬 A Final Word
Overall, we had a productive and inspiring spring 2025. We are deeply grateful for everyone who visited and supported us during these challenging times. We always aim to make visits mutually beneficial—enriching both visitors and our community.
Our programs support over 500 youth in La Carpio through education and sports, and we provide fresh fruits, vegetables and meats, home improvements, emergency medical care, seed money for small business enterprises, and emergency relief to over 500 people a week.
👉 Please consider supporting our work this year—whether through a donation or volunteering. Your help ensures we can continue addressing food security, safe housing, stronger health, quality education, sports, and emergency relief.
📧 Contact us at fundacionhumanitariacr@gmail.com to learn how you can help. We offer tax-exempt donation options in both Costa Rica and the United States.
Thank you for your continued generosity and for shining your light when it’s needed most!
At the beginning of the year when we were doing one of our community educational visits when were we presented with a new housing challenge. In one the most impoverished zones of La Carpio, we found a small one-room shack housing 20 people. 8 of these persons were a family of women and girls living in the squalid conditions.
This was a high risk situation for the family and we took this on as an urgent case. We asked they present us with a possible solutions including building a house on new land or purchasing something already existent. In the meantime we began to muster up interest among possible donors to cover any costs linked to this.
Initially, they found a house in Cartago in an area where we have relocated other families. Funny enough the house belonged to the cousin of someone we had helped relocate and find housing in that area many years ago. However, this plan didn’t work out.
Undeterred, we continued to search a feasible solution and donations. After several months we finally found the place for these women and girls to forge a healthy, happy and free life. We will continue to monitor and support them until they can reach a place of complete independence.
“This family who I call the Carpio 8 was living in squalor and grave danger in La Carpio. Thanks to generous donors they are now in a renovated shack in a safe neighborhood. If only we could do more like this…” – Gail
Today, like every day, I see what are called my cases. I have an office, and people lined up to see me.
Jony:
A Nicaraguan refugee from 2018. Both his brothers were murdered. He lives in a house with his wife, 17-year-old son, and autistic son, whom he loves with all his heart. He has a chronic ailment. We provide him with monthly rent relief and a weekly food basket. His autistic son has been having constant, uncontrollable seizures. I provide Jony a safe place to cry.
Maria:
A Nicaraguan refugee with cancer. She has one child and has been diagnosed with cancer. Her chemotherapy and radiotherapy were suspended because she can’t pay for insurance since she can’t work. She lives with her mother in a house where the owner is an angel on earth. This kind landlady helps Maria get to our place and carries her food basket for her. I provide both her and her neighbor with food and talk with her gently. On Monday, she shows up beautifully dressed, smiling, her wispy hair combed, and thankful to us for our help.
Hugo:
An ex-Contra fighter with an extensive family. He always shows up with something to give so we can provide him with free food. I always banter good-naturedly with him because I am Gringa, he is Nica, and I was Sandinista.
Carla:
A young mother of three, including a very fragile newborn. We give her clothes, diapers, food, and love for her kids. She can’t work. I provide her with some rent relief. I see she is scared, and I see her.
Maria and her 13-year-old son:
He is trying desperately to stay in school and graduate sixth grade. He comes every day to help carry up the food. They just got evicted. I gave her rent relief, and our team decided to make him a formal member and provide him with weekly financial help and a food basket.
And So The Days o By
If I did not have the support of the donors, none of these fragile and gentle people could get their needs met. A listening heart is good, but a listening heart with some financial power is better.
The year was 1997, the CRHF had just been legally founded in Santa Ana. Our volunteer work was centered in this area of Costa Rica. Down the street from the Foundation/Educational Resource Center was a squatter community of around eighty families. (more on the ERC in future posts)
The Beginnings
We mainly focused our volunteer work in La Promesa with single women heads of household, some of who were Nicaraguan refugees. The houses were all made of tin and some wood with dirt floors.
This is when our bunkbed program started with the Boy Scouts of CR. We also had our first theatre presentation called “Your Home Is Where Your Heart Is”
Reallocation
After more than 4 years of squatting the land, the government institutions were able to come to a peaceful resolution and reallocate the community to a low-income housing development. The CRHF served as a mediator and was able to help with the transition.
The houses the government agencies built are a simple but durable design made of prefabricated concrete. The CRHF, with the help of numerous volunteers helped paint and beautify the community, including gardening and cleaning-ups.
Right Action
In 2003 we began the construction of a two-story community center (seen in the picture) which culminated in 2005. This in part thanks to the efforts of national and international donors and volunteers. This center served as one of our first Family Well-Being Centers (FWBC). This is a model we have replicated throughout some of the most impoverished and marginalized communities in Costa Rica.
The community as a whole then reached what our Poverty Reduction Model of Development (PREMDEV) would call a level of Right Action. This means we were no longer needed as they were able to become self-sufficient in a sustainable way. By that time we had already began working in La Carpio and with children living on the street.
Transparency
You can read more in the 2005 year end report, the FWBC’s and the PREMDEV on the CRHF.org website. By clicking on the magnifying glass, you can search for this information using keywords such as “Family well being” or “La Promesa”.
As part of our transparency pillar, we try to make all our projects and financial reports as available as possible. Financial reports are available upon request. Please consider volunteering with the CRHF and for your donations to nonprofits in Costa Rica. Click here to donate or below for paypal. Thank You For Sharing Our Dream!
We shared our pain. This is Elsa. She has a fourteen year old daughter with severe cerebral palsy. While I was tending my father in his last days, Elsa came to my mind often.
As four of us turned my father to the other side, or gave him liquids to suck on a sponge, or caressed his forehead, or patted his back, or sang to him…I thought of Elsa who has been doing this all alone for 14 years for her daughter, in a one room place, often with no water.
Elsa has not gone out alone in all that time except to take her other kids to school. I don’t know how she has done it. But…yesterday she came to get her weekly basic food basket. I wanted her to know….that I now know.
And because my singing voice is cringeworthy, we put ‘Lean on Me‘ on the speaker and we stood back to back leaning on each other whole holding hands. I will never desert Elsa. Or any of the others.
I am in mourning one week, and feel like a turtle on its back. She has been in mourning for 14 years and loves her daughter ferociously. Her weekly food supply provided by donor Howard and our Automercado program is so much more than food. I get it.
How does a country with no army protect itself from invasion? From a neighboring country, from drugs traffickers. From gangs. From gun violence. From any other disturbing situation?
Our president AND his advisors have cooked up a plan. First and foremost. Strengthen the education system. Second reinforce pride in the country through unified celebration of national holidays. A small gesture..renovate the school uniform rules. And then, introduce the word sovereignty to the national vocabulary.
A firm unified and led concept. Like when mom and dad sit the wayward child down for a talk. Clear rules and expectations. Coupled with ,”we know you can do it”. Attention and praise for small improvement and consistent steady encouragement.
Then…hire 300 more well trained police and publish videos of them together at an induction ceremony. Not to threaten or be aggressive but to REMIND. We are here. Standing firm. Tighten up consequences for small infractions like speeding or running a traffic sign. Align the judicial system, with the police system, with an attitude of restorative justice. Use the press to keep communication open.
And I’ll tell you what we don’t do. We don’t all walk around carrying guns. We don’t lose our daily courtesy. We don’t forget to greet each other no matter what soccer team you are rooting for. And when we discover a bully or a grooming or a cyber danger our government and ngo system step in to educate and support the situation.
Costa Rica is still far from the country it dreams of becoming but it certainly is way beyond the hatred and it’s consequences found in other sadly suffering parts of the world. We are blessed because we have strong and wise leadership. And we know our children will not have to go to war. We believe in ourselves.
The day of the commemoration liberation from the army we were standing in the Democracy Plaza. Waiting. Someone said…look, there is the president and they are filming him. Of course we had to go and cureosiar. Sure enough. There was a film crew filming a president…But it was an actor look alike of President Figueres…doing a reenactment of the speech had dismantling the army.
BUT we were there for another mission. We were waiting for volunteer Julie, who had arrived just a week ago, to meet for the first time since she was nine months old, her very alive mother. It “only” took a few days to find Julie’s long lost family and there we were. Waiting. Suddenly, we saw them mother, brother, sister and two delightful nephews walking toward us. Then there were hugs as they found each other again. Tears flowed and there was a kind of peace in the air. A relief and a calm.
Then we gathered ourselves to walk across the street to a local restaurant that had been tipped off about this life changing event. The Calypso band asked ” what song shall we play?’ and all we could think of was “happy birthday to you”. So there it was…and the whole restaurants broke into applause. A great meal, profound conversation and wonderful little drawings by the two little kids as a gift for “tia”. And all this transpired right there in the Democracy Plaza. Where years ago an army leader took a sledge hammer to a fortress wall forever changing the destiny of all Costa Rican children. Even the adopted ones.It was a good day.
In the realm of humanitarian work, certain individuals shine as beacons of inspiration, dedicating their lives to uplifting communities and creating positive change. One such luminary is Gail Nystrom, whose impactful contributions through the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation have left an indelible mark on the lives of many.
The Genesis of a Visionary
Gail Nystrom’s journey into humanitarian work began with a profound realization – the power of community-driven initiatives to transform lives. In the late 1970s with the Peace Corps, she found herself in Costa Rica, where she witnessed the challenges faced by vulnerable populations. Undeterred by the enormity of the task, in 1997 Nystrom founded the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, driven by a vision of creating sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions.
Focused Initiatives for Lasting Impact
The foundation under Nystrom’s leadership has been instrumental in implementing a diverse range of initiatives aimed at addressing the root causes of poverty. From education and healthcare to housing and microenterprise development, each program is designed to empower individuals and communities, fostering a sense of self-reliance.
One standout project is the foundation’s commitment to education. Recognizing the transformative power of knowledge, Nystrom and her team have tirelessly worked to provide educational opportunities to those who might otherwise be left behind. Scholarships, health programs, school construction projects, food security and vocational training programs have become cornerstones of the foundation’s efforts, opening doors for countless individuals to build better futures for themselves and their families.
A Ripple Effect of Positive Change
Gail Nystrom’s holistic approach to humanitarian work has created a ripple effect, impacting not only the individuals directly served by the foundation but also the wider community. By fostering an environment of collaboration and inclusivity, the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation has become a catalyst for positive change, inspiring others to join the cause and contribute to the collective well-being.
Challenges and Triumphs
No journey of humanitarian work is without its challenges, and Nystrom’s path has been no exception. Economic uncertainties, logistical hurdles, and the ever-evolving landscape of social issues have tested the resilience of the foundation. However, it is precisely in overcoming these challenges that the true strength of Nystrom’s commitment and the foundation’s impact are revealed.
Triumphs, whether large or small, paint a vibrant picture of the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation’s success. Improved healthcare access, food sustainability, thriving local businesses, and empowered individuals breaking the cycle of poverty are testaments to the unwavering dedication of Nystrom and her team.
A Legacy of Compassion
As Gail Nystrom continues to lead the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, her legacy is one of compassion, resilience, and positive change. The foundation stands as a beacon of hope, demonstrating that sustainable solutions and community-driven initiatives can create lasting impacts on the lives of those in need.
In a world often beset by challenges, Gail Nystrom’s story and the work of the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation serve as a testament to the profound difference one person can make. By empowering communities, fostering education, and addressing the root causes of poverty, Nystrom has not only changed lives but has set in motion a wave of transformation that will resonate for generations to come.
We sang. We laughed. We Saw each other. Children of the Massai. Pure sweet innocence.
Some people ask me why I do this work…sometimes it is genuine curiosity or desire to know. Sometimes people don’t believe our stats. And some might just be jealous. Lately, I got challenged from someone calling me a failure because I didn’t recruit more volunteers. And someone unrelated hinted that I was doing it for “ego”.
Let me make one thing clear…There is absolutely NOTHING that you can say that I haven’t already turned over in my head…remember it has been 40 years to try one thing or another. I feel like I’ve been pretty well honed.
And then there are moments that just bring it all to my heart. I call them moments of grace when there is a glow in the air and I can hear the universe hum. And thats what happened yesterday… because 13 year old Osmani came home alive after 3 months in the hospital. The tears of joy were flowing…there is a mini mini, a mini, a 9 year old, an 11 year old, osmani and a 16 year old girl who wants to be a doctor. and an extremely dedicated mother who learned in the hospital how to bathe, dress, carry and help with the toilet for her son. But yesterday all the chorus was tears, “we missed you sooooo much” repeated over and over.
With our donor we paid the rent, gave them food baskets 3 days a week, got a full time caretaker so mom can go get some work. Got them a new stove top etc. They are set up. Tomorrow we will get the bathroom bathing chair.
And this is why..it doesn’t always work like this but as they say all the time with God’s help we are so grateful. At least we try. Only room for great humility here.
