The Wheels on the bus Go Round and Round

April 3, 2023

When we think about what makes El Hogar work, many things come immediately to mind: a caring and dedicated faculty and staff, the books, supplies, and technology needed to teach effectively, safe and dignified living spaces for the students. An element of our program that you might not think of right away, but the one thing that literally makes our program go, is our fleet of vehicles. In the last few years, the changing mix of students and the expanding programs we offer have made the El Hogar fleet of vehicles absolutely indispensable to the fulfillment of our mission.

Today out of a total enrollment of 211 students, 91 live in various neighborhoods in and around Tegucigalpa and ride the bus to and from school every day. Without our vans and buses, none of these students would be able to get to our campuses. Yes, there is a public transportation system in the city, but from the areas where our students live, they would have to take two public buses in the morning and then two more after school each with a separate daily fare. Many of our students are quite young—6,7,8 years old—and taking public transportation would not be safe, and paying four bus fares every day would not be affordable for their families. So, we drive our buses and vans to their neighborhoods to pick them up each morning, and then drop them back home every afternoon—free of charge.

Keeping our vehicles in safe, in working order and filled with gas has been a very tough challenge this year. With inflation at around 10% in Honduras the price of gas in Tegucigalpa hovers somewhere between $4.50 and $5.00 a gallon. Its costs about $85.00 a day just for gas to get those 91 students to and from their neighborhoods to either El Hogar de Amor Y Esperanza in Tegucigalpa or the Instituto Tecníco de Santa Maria in Amarateca.

We need your help to get us through this rough economic time and to make sure that we can continue to transport all of our students to school safely every day. Perhaps you can give enough to pay for one day’s roundtrip – $85.00, a week of rides to school – $425.00, or even an entire month – $1,700.

Additionally, there are many other programs and activities at El Hogar that would not be possible without a safe and reliable fleet of vehicles. We shuttle children all around the city for a variety of important reasons. For example:

☀ We provide transportation for physical and mental health care appointments.
☀ We take kids to sports and other extra-curricular activities that are not based on our campuses.
☀ We drive boarding and residential students back and forth from home to visit their families on weekends and during vacation times.
☀ Our staff use our vehicles for travel to find family members of our students from whom they may have been lost or separated.
☀ Many of our students come to us not knowing their exact birthdates and not having any legal identity documentation. Our staff use our vehicles to go to the appropriate agencies to ensure that all of our students have the documentation they need to be fully official citizens of Honduras.
☀ Finally, to effectively and efficiently operate the farm in Talanga and provide our campuses with food, we need several vehicles there to make it all work.

There are eleven vehicles in the El Hogar fleet. They range from our big yellow school bus that is 30-years-old, to two new smaller buses purchased in 2020. We also own three pick-up trucks, four other small buses/vans and a car for administrative use. Many of these vehicles, like the large bus, are quite old and in need of replacement. In fact, the average age of our vehicles is 20 years. A large bus can cost more than $50,000 to purchase while the smaller buses and vans cost $20,000 or more. Money to buy new vehicles is simply not in the budget this year, so making sure we can keep these older vehicles running and running safely is a top priority.

We would be truly grateful if you would consider making a gift to support our transportation program and to help us keep our vehicles running safely. Your gift will not only make the wheels on the buses go round and round, but it will also help to lighten the load of our annual budget in general. Thank you so much for your support of El Hogar and for helping to make sure that our students can get to school and back home safely every day.

Thank you for your continued support of El Hogar!