Spirit Team

The Spirit Team in the US

We welcome people who are interested in joining our effort.

Pam Novak, a retired professor of business, founded the charity in 1999. While teaching many Asians in Australia, she realized women, especially from developing countries, needed help to get out of poverty. By providing an educational opportunity, family and future generations would be impacted. As president of spirit, she is blessed to have the following wonderful volunteers to make the Spirit dream a reality.

Joe Hentges had a career in education as a District superintendent. He retired to Arizona where he is very active in Rotary, just completing the series of terms as the district director. With his experiences, he has been an invaluable resource in working with young people. He is fully committed to our mission by sponsoring a number of students, providing for the construction of the large all purpose room in the Coatepeque house, and ongoing general program support. His commitment to the program has been unending and solid.

Donna Jungbluth began as an English helper. Since then, she has assumed responsibility for the volunteer program scheduling, recruitment and dissemination of information.  

Steve Cavanaugh has been a volunteer and contributor in a number of non-profit organizations. Having worked on web page development for a Fortune 500 aerospace company, he takes care of some of the updates and organization of the Spirit web site.

Our Team in Guatemala

The long term goal is to develop a team that can do most of the applicant interviewing and sorting out. They know the people!

Guisela Garcia was in the program though high school and her first year of university. Her grades were incredible! She was responsible and dedicated to maximizing the opportunity. She finished her classes at university while working at a call center. She is now in the Spirit board and is our representative in Guatemala. She manages the Guatemala City house and enjoys being part of making this opportunity available to future students.