Dear Friends and Partners of Safe Passage,

As the year comes to a close, I am humbled and deeply moved by what this community has achieved together in a complex and increasingly divided world. 

Safe Passage fosters transformative, lasting change in one of the most marginalized and dangerous communities in the Americas. Our students and families face unbelievably threatening and traumatic life circumstances on a daily basis; they live ALL the systemic issues that drive migration. Guatemalan youth continue to be the highest concentration of unaccompanied minors at the US border. Our work is tied globally to the major issues that hold humanity back—violence, abject poverty, intergenerational trauma, and the systemic inequities that drive migration.

Our students constantly inspire us through their refusal to be defined by where they are from and our community proves that together we can write a wildly different and more loving future for Guatemala and humanity. With nearly 30 graduates in university as we head into 2026, all our students achieving measurable academic growth, and 100% of our 5 year olds reading at or above grade level, our students and families are breaking cycles and proving their ability to make change in their own community and country. 

The global community that has built Safe Passage has continued to stun me this year. As we closed the final celebrations of our 25 years, we traveled to California, Maine, Boston, Oregon, Washington, Germany, Spain and of course Guatemala, where friends old and new shared, celebrated, and came together around that magic that this organization has made over many years. Across languages, cultures, vast distances and differences, the Safe Passage community proves that humanity has a whole lot of beauty to share and amplify.

I am filled with gratitude and also a clear-eyed sense of what it will take to sustain this work in the year ahead. To continue providing the comprehensive education, health, and family support that allows our students and their families to thrive, Safe Passage must raise $3 million each year, or roughly $250,000 each month. These resources are what make it possible to address the deep-rooted poverty and migration pressures that so many of us care about. If you have already given this year, thank you. If you haven’t given yet or if you have a little more room in your do-gooding budget, we would be honored and moved to receive your support. 

Thank you for being a part of this important work. Together we are proving that the cycle of poverty can be broken in just one generation through intentional, loving, culturally-affirming education and wrap-around services. Your role in our history, present, and future– where our students lead us forward– means so much to the faces you see in these photos, which I took myself as reminders of why we do this work. Our students never cease to compel me forward and I hope you feel the same.

With gratitude,

Erin Mooney

Executive Director