The S.C.O.P.E. Foundation, Inc.
MISSION: The S.C.O.P.E. Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity which chooses to make a commitment to the poor through supporting education in El Salvador.
S.C.O.P.E. provides financial support to the Santa Luisa School located in the capital of El Salvador, San Salvador. El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. The average person in El Salvador survives on around $5 a day, thus making the county one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Over the past twenty-five years, this small country has been wracked by a bloody civil war, hurricanes, and devastating earthquakes.
Santa Luisa School, San Salvador, El Salvador
A Catholic Vincentian institution that educates the boys and girls of today with respect and dignity, so that in the future they will make responsible decisions promoting democracy, academic achievement, and realize their full potential.
Santa Luisa School Orgins
Founded over 70 years ago in 1935 by The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul who saw a need to help the materially poor children who were working or living in San Salvador and beyond, but whose lives and futures were being determined by the dangers of this inner city environment. The children of then and today are economically and spiritually poor, often falling under the influence of detrimental values that come from the harsh environment in which they have to work and live.
Santa Luisa Today
The Director of the School is Sr. Martha Danelia Lopez. There are 3 Religious Sisters and a faculty of 23 dedicated lay teachers serving 512 students (average class size is 30 students). They are a part of the Central America-Panama Province of their religious order.
The Santa Luisa School strives to educate its students so they will realize their full God-given potential and succeed in spite of the environment of poverty that surrounds them. The school educates the children in a loving and safe Christian environment and provides hot meals daily and basic medical care. The challenge confronting the Religious Sisters who run the school is a significant shortfall of revenue and income necessary to fund the annual operating budget and expenses of $25,000. The principal of the school is only able to raise $10,000 a year from partial tuition payments from those families who are able to contribute on very limited means and from a small amount of money raised through proceeds from the school school which sells school supplies and snacks.
In reality, the Santa Luisa school maintains an operational deficit of close to $15,000 annually to a shoe string budget of $25,000. Private benefactors and friends of the school have generously assisted the principal with keeping the school solvent since 2003 when its treasury was empty. Literally, the Santa Luisa school has confronted the reality of closing for the last six years or more. The need is real, pressing and significant. The education, livelihood, and mission of 524 little souls, 23 lay teachers and staff, and 4 religious sisters is at stake.
