Annual Report

A note from Executive Director Hannah Nadeau:

I was in 5th grade the first time I learned how to shift. My dad would take me to basketball practice and teach me how to shift as he drove. After that, I practiced actually driving with my grandpa in a ’72 Ford pickup on old farm roads. Then, in my first year of college, I had to borrow my parents’ manual car to drive to school. Shortly after, I moved to Guatemala where I learned to drive a 15-passenger manual microbus through the streets of Antigua and its surrounding villages….and a lot of shifting took place.

Learning how to shift is necessary, and it proved all the more important in 2020.

This past year, most of us had to learn how to shift rather abruptly. For GRACES, that meant learning how to educate impoverished students remotely, using their economical smartphones and providing a total of 2,564 data packages over eight months of online learning.

It also meant providing 110,796 meals through food bag distribution, which required driving a total of 627 miles to deliver them. It meant our psychologist performed 333 counseling sessions through phone calls, video chats and messaging apps, and it meant sending pre-recorded bible lessons bi-weekly from our local church partners.

The shifting that took place was necessary to continue our mission of providing physical, emotion and spiritual support to our students.

I want to thank each and every one of you for shifting with us and providing your unconditional support and love for the children of Guatemala. God has uniquely woven together our GRACES community, and together we are able to accomplish His mission.

Blessings,

Hannah Nadeau Girón
Executive Director
GRACES