By Rebecca Goldfine

Yarmouth native Hanley Denning ’92 founded Safe Passage in 1999 to tutor children whose families made their living scavenging and recycling trash from a huge landfill in Guatemala City.

Since Safe Passage’s founding—and continuing past Denning’s death in 2007 in a car accident—scores of people from Maine have contributed to its impact.

“We have over 10,000 individuals in our database from Maine,” said development director Rachel Meyn Ugarte.

Hundreds of volunteers—including student and alumni groups—have traveled to Guatemala City to volunteer. Between 2003 to 2019, 160 Bowdoin students, on fourteen alternative spring break trips, worked with Safe Passage.

 “The bridge from Maine to Guatemala is so tangible. That is something we want to celebrate with Mainers, whose foundational support was pivotal to Safe Passage’s success,” Meyn Ugarte said.

Safe Passage today runs schools from early-childhood programs to ninth grade for more than 500 students, supporting them as they continue at local high schools. These high school students are invited to return to Safe Passage in the afternoons for lessons in English, software tech, and skill building.

Additionally, Safe Passage has an on-site health clinic with psychologists, social workers, and nutritionists. Each student receives four meals a day.

Each year, the organization needs to raise between $2.7 million and $3 million to fund its programs, relying primarily on individual donations.

With the helps of these gifts, Safe Passage is opening a new middle school this winter. “In January, 2026, we’ll move the middle schoolers into a new, incredible facility for 120 students,” Meyn Ugarte said. It’ll include a gym, music center, and art center. 

The school is located within a community of about 60,000 people, many of them Indigenous and many who have migrated to the city from the countryside. The majority of these families pursue “some kind of work that is connected to the landfill,” Meyn Ugarte said, typically sorting and recycling debris from the dump.

The landfill is the largest in Central America. Though the city anticipated a decade ago that it would fill completely and have to close, is currently stands at seventy percent capacity. “It is still going strong because the families and communities are so adept as recyclers. However, they are not compensated as such,” Meyn Ugarte said.

Over the years, many Safe Passage alumni have stories of trouncing poverty. The first to graduate from medical school is now a doctor at a city hospital. Another is enrolled in law school, with dreams of becoming a congresswoman to help her community. A recent alumnus trained as a mechanical engineer and is working at the airport.

Safe Passage’s educational model could be an example for other communities, Meyn Ugarte said. “We’re working at the root of migration,” she added. “As these families are able to thrive in Guatemala, they don’t need to migrate to the US.”

If you are interested in attending the anniversary celebration, email Rachel Meyn Ugarte.