Latest News | Emiliani Project

Posted on March 3, 2017March 3, 2017 by The Emiliani Project

The Emiliani Project February 2017 Newsletter

February 2017 Mission Trip a Success!

A total of 18 Mission Volunteers travelled to Colombia this past week to work with our kids and to help with the construction of the new home. They helped us kick off a new English program for the children, hosted art classes, dance classes, worked in the kitchen, did maintenance around the home, took the children on a field trip, and spent the week making 170 new little friends. At the new home site the volunteers installed new flooring in two of our new buildings and finished painting the exteriors. It was an amazing trip and we accomplished so much. Thank you to everyone who participated and everyone that helped make their participation possible.

If you’re interested in joining us on this or future trips, please contact us at: missions@emilianiproject.org or visit our Mission Trips page for more information and registration. A trip with The Emiliani Project will change your life!

Bring Home the Kids Campaign

The Bring Home the Kids fundraising campaign is still going hot! We are currently at 38% of our goal of $100,000 for the construction of the commercial kitchen and dining room facility at our new children’s home. We want to get this built by this summer to stay on track to open the home to the first group of 30 children by Spring 2018. Help us get to our goal by going to Bring Home the Kids or Contact Us to become an Ambassador of the campaign. As an Ambassador, we’ll set up a campaign page for you and make it Facebook/internet ready for you to send links to your friends, family and co-workers. It’s super easy and a fun way to engage the people you love in a good cause.

New Mission Trip Dates Coming!

Our demand for Mission Trips is so great this year that we’ve decided to add a third trip to the calendar. We will be announcing dates for the trip soon, so please stay tuned to our Facebook page or go to our Mission Trips page for the latest and greatest.

Posted on February 11, 2017 by The Emiliani Project

The Emiliani Project January 2017 Newsletter

Bring Home the Kids Campaign
The Emiliani Project is well underway on our Bring Home the Kids fundraising campaign design to raise $100,000 for the construction of the commercial kitchen and dining room facility at our new children’s home. Completion of this facility is the final piece of the puzzle for getting this home open. Once the home is 100% built, we will have a capacity of 160 children. However, there is such a demand for space that we will be opening the home early with an initial group of 30 children. To do this, we need this facility built! To date, we have raised over 31% of our goal, but we need to get to get to 100%. If you wish to donate to the campaign, you can do so here: Bring Home the Kids. Or, if you wish to volunteer to be an ambassador for the campaign, where you get your own crowd-funding page, please Contact Us. We set up the page for you and make it Facebook/internet ready for you to send links to your friends, family and co-workers. It’s super easy and a fun way to engage the people you love in a good cause.

February 2017 Mission Trip
We are getting ready to kick off our first mission trip of 2017! February 18 to 26 we will have 18 volunteers at the Hogar Bohío de María in Medellín, Colombia. They’ll be working with our kids, kicking off our new English program, and working at the construction site of our new home. Our next scheduled mission trip is July 29 to August 6. If you’re interested in joining us on this or future trips, please contact us at: missions@emilianiproject.org or visit our Mission Trips page for more information and registration. A trip with The Emiliani Project will change your life!

What a Great 2016
2016 is in the books and was a great year for The Emiliani Project. We had two successful mission trips down to our homes in Colombia; we build two more buildings at the new children’s home; we had a very long and fruitful campaign summer where we traveled to Orlando, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and throughout southern California speaking about our project; and a successful 2nd annual golf tournament. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our amazing volunteers that made all of it possible. Without you, we are nothing. We are so incredibly humbled by the outpour of support we received this past year. And, we are especially hopeful for a great 2017!

Posted on September 30, 2016 by The Emiliani Project

Second Annual Golf Tournament and August Mission Trip Recap

Second Annual Golf Tournament

Emiliani-Charity-Golf-2016 The Emiliani Project will be hosting its second annual charity golf tournament on Monday October 17, at The Crossings Golf Course in Carlsbad. The event promises to be a memorable day with prizes, silent auction and magnificent views of the ocean and surrounding hills. Golfers of all skill levels are invited, and we encourage groups of two or four. Lunch will be provided with each round of play, and the day will conclude with a dinner and a short program about The Emiliani Project. We are already receiving sponsorship offers from community businesses: if your business would like to participate through sponsorship or offering something for the Silent Auction, please Contact Us. Be part of a great day on the course, and part of the work we are doing to change the lives of orphaned and abandoned children here in the U.S. and abroad. You can register for the event and sign up to be a corporate sponsor on our Tournament Webpage.

Volunteers needed!! Please consider giving some of your time on the day of our golf tournament, to assist with registrations and the post-golf presentation where we will award prizes and give a short presentation about the impact we are having in our work.

August Colombia Mission Trip Update

This past August we had 12 volunteers join us in travelling to the homes in Medellin, Colombia. In each instance, we were inspired by the example and witness of these volunteers, as they served the kids in the home, and/or pitched in to help with construction on the home which is currently underway. Our volunteers also received richly in return – as they time they spent offering their time and talent to join us in our work was deeply meaningful.

Recently Pope Francis canonized St. Teresa of Kolkata, the foundress of the Missionaries of Charity. Her name-saint is St. Teresa the Little Flower who wrote in her reflections that “she would spend her heaven doing good on earth”. These two great women of prayer and charity encourage us in our work – and we invite you to consider one of our upcoming Mission trips. Our next mission trip is in Spring 2017, and we invite you to consider joining us on one of those adventures of the heart.

For more information, visit our Mission Trips page or contact Chuck Navarrete at: missions@emilianiproject.org or (760) 470-0425.

2016 Mission Cooperative Update

The Emiliani Project team travelled across the United States this past Summer, speaking at parishes and raising awareness of our mission and our work. This year, we were invited to speak at parishes in Florida, Texas, California and Hawaii. In these speaking engagements, we have the opportunity to speak to many people in formal settings, giving testimony about what inspired the work of The Emiliani Project, and the various ways in which we invite people to join us in our work. We were blessed by the priests and religious that hosted us, by the prayers of those who listened to us, by the generosity of many new benefactors, and had many inquiries about our mission trips. Thank you to all who donated through the mission cooperative!

We are expanding our efforts and making preparations now to reach even more parishes next year, in more parts of the country. Please pray that we may receive invitations from other dioceses, so we can continue to get our message out to people like you.

Posted on June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by The Emiliani Project

Emiliani Project Second Annual Charity Golf Tournament

Emiliani Project Second Annual Charity Golf Tournament

Mark your calendars! The Emiliani Project will be hosting its second annual charity golf tournament on Monday October 17. The event will take place at The Crossings at Carlsbad golf course, a beautiful golf course with views of the ocean and surrounding county, nestled in the heart of North County San Diego.

We would like to get the word out to as many golfers as possible, to join us for a fun day of supporting a good cause. These events are fun because golfers of all skill levels are invited and encouraged to participate – and there will be contests, prizes and memories to be made. Additionally, should your business would like to sponsor the event through donations for our silent auction or participating with hospitality or sampling-related giveaways, we are looking for companies willing to support. Dinner following play will be provided with a short program about the Emiliani Project, and what we are achieving to change the lives of children here in the U.S. and abroad.

You can register for the event on our tournament website at emilianiproject.org/golf-tournament/

April Mission Trip & Upcoming August Mission Trip

The Emiliani Project recently traveled with a group of volunteers to Medellín to work in the Hogar and to help with construction of the new home. These volunteers were inspired by our work, and the trip concluded with a festive BBQ at the hogar for the kids and volunteers, followed by a special field trip with the kids to the Medellín aquarium and and planetarium. Thanks to our volunteers for making this trip such a success: these volunteers raised more money than was needed to cover their travel expenses, so the balance was donated to the Hogar for the operation of the home. Thank you for your generosity!

Our Summer 2016 Mission trip departs for Colombia soon. From July 30 to August 7th, volunteers will be joining us in our work at the Hogar (the home) working with the children, and also at the new home which is under construction, helping lend a hand in the project’s completion. For many, this trip is not only an opportunity to experience the work of The Emiliani Project first hand, but can be a very spiritually nourishing experience. Please pray for the volunteers and we thank them for their service to the children.

If you are interested in future Missions trips, please contact Chuck Navarette at missions@emilianiproject.org. We will be announcing dates soon for the next trip.

Our New Website is Now Live!

The Emiliani Project launched a new website recently, to better showcase our mission, serve the needs of our organization, and to raise awareness as our outreach has grown to people around the country and indeed around the world. The new website now features a Spanish language site. Our thanks to OC Sites for their generous donation of the project time to create and launch our new website. Please visit us and see all the improvements at www.emilianiproject.org.

Posted on March 20, 2016March 21, 2016 by The Emiliani Project

The Emiliani Project Newsletter March 2016

Emiliani Project Support: Charity Shoe Drives!

In an important new step for raising funds to benefit the children, we have formed a successful partnership with funds2orgs. The funds2orgs initiative is a two-fold opportunity to benefit those in need.

All shoes donated are given in the name of The Emiliani Project which (1) pays us $1 for each pair of shoes received and (2) the shoes are then sent to developing countries to be restored by underprivileged small business owners in an effort to stimulate micro-economies and provide an outlet for these small communities to thrive.

In a recent shoe drive, over $734 was raised for The Emiliani Project thanks to Empresa Elementary and funds2orgs. To find out more, to participate in raising money for The Emiliani Project and ensure your used shoes find a good home, visit our Start a Shoe Drive page.

Emiliani Project Launches new Website

Over the past several years our work has grown, and we have reached many people to educate them about our work, whether it be through our mission trips, our visits to parishes, our coffee sales or our events in the community. In order to showcase our mission and our work with the children in Colombia for the next stage in our development, we have redesigned our website. The new website has much more information about our work, how to support the Emiliani Project, and leverages the latest approaches in site design to help us in search engine rankings and adaptability for mobile devices. Our thanks to OC Sites for their donated time and willingness to provide tremendous technical and design-based direction. Please visit our new site at www.emilianiproject.org.

Construction Update: Phase Three Construction Continues

The construction of the new home continues in Medellín, Colombia is moving at a fast clip. We have completed foundations for 2 dormitories, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a dining room; and we begun building the above ground structures. The road into the home is also being improved, along with the entryway to the main gate. We hope this phase of construction (Phase 3) will be complete this summer so we can get onto Phase 4. The April and August Mission Trips will include time at the new home, to assist with construction as mission trip volunteers express interest.

2016 Mission Trips: Memories for a Lifetime

We invite you to consider personally investing in work of The Emiliani Project by considering one of our mission trips. The next mission trip will be happening in April 2016, with opportunities to work with the children or help with the construction of the new buildings. This is an amazing opportunity to serve those less fortunate, and have an experience of a lifetime.

If you are interested in future missions trips, please visit our Mission Trips page for more information and registration. Dates for our 2016 mission trips are April 23rd to 30th and July 30th to August 7th. We’d love to have you!

Posted on September 21, 2015 by The Emiliani Project

2016 Mission Trip Dates

The Emiliani Project has set the dates for the next mission trips to Medellin, Colombia where you’ll have the opportunity to volunteer your time to work with 170 orphaned and abandoned kids, while supporting our efforts to build a new home to save another 160 from the streets of the city. There will be two trips this upcoming year:

– April 23 to May 1, 2016

– July 30 to August 7, 2016

Choose one or both, but these are going to be great trips! The cost of each trip is a tax-deductible donation of $500/person or $800/couple (shared room). We provide a sponsor packet to help you raise your donations with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, etc.. Your donation includes lodging, food, transport, and all mission trip activities. Airfare is not included. Free time activities/tours are also not included. The donations are used solely to cover costs. The unused portion of your donations will be given directly to the children’s home at the conclusion of the trip(s). On our August 2015 trip we ended up donating almost $3500 directly to the home to be used for clothes, shoes, books, health care and other essentials for the children!

On our 2016 mission trips, volunteers will have two options:
Option 1 – Children’s Home Volunteer – Hogar Bohio de Maria
You will work daily with 170 children (ages 1-18yrs) at the home. You will stay at the home, eat all of your meals with the kids, and help to support the operations of the home while working with kids in need of love. Volunteer duties will be based on the needs of the children and your personal interests.

Option 2 – New Home Construction Volunteer – Hogar de Cristo
You will work at our construction site where we are in the process of building our new children’s home. You will stay in guest house. Each day you will volunteer your time and skills assisting our construction crew. Work duties will be based on our needs and on your particular skillsets or interests.

For more details on the upcoming trip, please see our 2016 Mission Trip Flyer and our more detailed 2016 Volunteer Information Packet. They have information on costs, schedule, the types of work you’ll be doing with our kids, and a host of information on travel and Medellin. If you’re interested in joining us this summer, register on our Mission Trips webpage, or if your just interested in learning more, please contact our Director of Missions at: missions@emilianiproject.org.

It’s going to be an exciting time and hard work…and experience that you and the children will never forget. So join us, and help us put some smiles on some well-deserving faces!

Posted on July 25, 2015 by The Emiliani Project

First Annual Golf Tournament

Mark your calendars! The Emiliani Project will be hosting its first annual charity golf tournament on Monday October 12. The event will take place at The Crossings at Carlsbad golf course, a beautiful golf course with views of the ocean and surrounding county, nestled in the heart of North County San Diego. We would like to get the word out to as many golfers as possible, to join us for a fun day of supporting a good cause. These events are fun because golfers of all skill levels are invited and encouraged to participate- and there will be contests, prizes and memories to be made. Additionally, should your business would like to sponsor the event through donations for our silent auction or participating with hospitality or sampling-related giveaways, we are looking for companies willing to support. Dinner following play will be provided with a short program about the Emiliani Project, and what we are achieving to change the lives of children here in the U.S. and abroad. You can register for the event on our tournament website here or on the image below:

The Glory Days of Summer

As the summer starts, and life takes on a more leisurely pace, we are grateful to you our supporters, benefactors and prayer warriors. Even as the pace of life seems to be slowing down, our work does not stop as the children in our homes still need the care, support, education and spiritual formation which we are offering. To that end, things are accelerating for The Emiliani Project.

Mission Trip Departs Soon

Our Summer 2015 Mission trip departs to Colombia soon. From August 1st – August 9th, volunteers will be joining us in our work at the Hogar (the home) working with the children, and also at the new home which is under construction, helping lend a hand in the project’s completion. For many, this trip is not only an opportunity to experience the work of The Emiliani Project first hand, but can be a very spiritually nourishing experience. Please pray for the volunteers and we thank them for their service to the children.

If you are interested in future Missions trips, please contact Chuck Navarette at missions@emilianiproject.org. We will be announcing dates soon for the next trip.

St. Mary Star of the Sea La Jolla and St. Michael’s in San Diego – Outreach Visits

The Emiliani Project was invited to speak at the masses at St. Mary Star of the Sea church in La Jolla, on the weekend of May 23-24; and at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in San Diego, on the weekend of July 18-19. Thank you for all those we met those days, and who came up to offer prayer and financial support for our cause. Thank you to Fr. Jim Rafferty and Fr. Manny Ediza who invited us to their parishes, and to all who donated to support our mission. We are blessed by your generosity.

http://www.birdeasepro.com/EmilianiProject

Posted on April 2, 2015 by The Emiliani Project

Easter and the New Home

Reflecting on Holy Week & Easter

This week we pause with the Church to commemorate the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are thankful for all our benefactors, volunteers, supporters and friends, and know we are praying for you and your intentions this Holy Week. May God pour out His blessings of This Week, and of Easter, upon you and your families.

Pushing Forward: Phase 2 of our Building Project

Since we began our work in Colombia, The Emiliani Project has been working in three key areas of activity: (1) to support the home and the 170 kids which have been rescued, through spiritual, emotional and financial support, (2) to raise awareness and create opportunities for volunteers to work in missionary roles, at the home in Colombia, and (3) to fund the construction of a new home that will create shelter, care and a school for 160 more children in need. We have made great progress on all three fronts, however this year we are starting on the critical second phase of construction of the new home. We are about to start construction on the electrical, water treatment, septic and other key infrastructure installation for the property in Colombia. We want to thank our benefactors and supporters for your generosity, and in the coming month we’ll be making a special appeal to drive this second phase to completion. As you are probably aware, the Emiliani Project is a 501(c)(3) organization and each and every dollar donated goes to support the kids: we keep none of your generous donations for overhead or other expenditures. We are proud of the progress made, and look forward to building on our success and providing more updates on the new home later in the year.

Update on our August Mission Trip

The Emiliani Project will be leaving on August 1st to accompany a group of volunteers who will be making the trip to Medellin, to work in the home with the children. The mission trip will be from August 1 – 9, with opportunities to work with the kids or serve in the construction of the new home. We are offering a no-obligation information packet for all who are interested. Many of our former volunteers who have made this trip have stated their experiences were full of blessings and unexpected joy. We invite you to consider traveling with us: For more information about our mission trips, and participating in one of our mission trips in 2015, please e-mail Chuck Navarette at missions@emilianiproject.org.

Posted on March 4, 2015March 21, 2016 by The Emiliani Project

August 2015 Mission Trip

The Emiliani Project has set the dates for the next mission trip to Medellin, Colombia – August 1st to 9th. This trip will be our best yet. In our August trip you’ll have the opportunity to volunteer your time to work with orphaned and abandoned kids, while supporting our efforts to build a new home to save another 160 from the streets of the city. For details on the upcoming trip, please see our Aug 15 Mission Trip Flyer and our more detailed Aug 15 Volunteer Information Packet. They have information on costs, schedule, the types of work you’ll be doing with our kids, and a host of information on travel and Medellin.

If you’re interested in joining us this summer, or just interested in learning more, please contact our Director of Missions at: missions@emilianiproject.org for additional information.

It’s going to be an exciting time and hard work…and experience that you and the children will never forget. So join us, and help us put some smiles on some well-deserving faces!

Posted on March 2, 2015March 21, 2016 by The Emiliani Project

The Emiliani Project: Looking Ahead to 2015

Looking Ahead: The Emiliani Project 2015

This year promises to be a year that furthers the mission of The Emiliani Project in helping the children in Colombia, and here at home in Southern California. Key initiatives include raising awareness and funds for the Project through multiple Spring festivals in various communities around San Diego and Orange County, where we will sell coffee, tell our story and help people connect with the work we are doing. In the summer, we will again be traveling to various parishes in dioceses around the country to speak to the need in Colombia, and how the Emiliani Project is fulfilling the charism of its patron St. Jerome Emiliani to reach these kids.

In August we will make our third Mission Trip to Medellin, and are taking applications now for volunteers that want to travel to work with the children or to help in the construction of the home. Additionally, thanks to the generosity of our many benefactors, we are continuing each week to make progress on the construction of the Hogar (the home) in Colombia where we hope to have classrooms and living quarters completed by the end of the year. As some of you may know, on a recent trip to Colombia our founders were recognized by Padre Villalobos for their leadership and tireless efforts on behalf of the kids. We receive the blessing on our work, and share it with you all.

Appeal for Volunteers

As we start this new year, we are actively recruiting volunteers to help forward the work and mission of the Emiliani Project. The Emiliani Project is a 100% volunteer-based initiative, and one of the pillars of our organization is to offer people the opportunity to work with us, to directly benefit the children. There are a number of different ways in which we need your help. First, we need your help to spread the word about our work, and the opportunities we are creating for children both in Colombia as well as here in the US. We need volunteers to help staff our outreach events, where we meet the public, have the opportunity to tell our story, and sample and sell our coffee.

We need volunteers to help prepare and pack our coffee, as we source the beans from California, have them roasted locally, and pack them ourselves in our own Emiliani Project branded packaging. We need volunteers to help work in Colombia along-side our volunteer staff. We need volunteers to support us with various ad-hoc projects which come up from time to time. As you can see – The Emiliani Project takes on much and has accomplished much, but we can’t do any of it without your help. Please consider one of our key service areas, and please sign up at the Join Us page on our website to volunteer. Have questions? Reach us at info@emilianiproject.org. You will be richly blessed – and will be a blessing to others.

Mission Trip August 2015

As mentioned above, we are already planning for our next Mission Trip in August 1-9 2015. If you are interested in seeing the work of The Emiliani Project first hand, and experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to South America and see both the city of Medellin and work with those in need, please send us an email to missions@emilianiproject.org so we can send you a brief flyer about the August trip, and include you in a list of those who will receive information packets that will better explain what the trip will entail, and more importantly, what it will offer to the volunteers who attend.