CPI AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Your experience at CPI begins with your Spanish studies, but it does not have to end there! Studying with CPI offers the opportunity to enrich your cultural experience while also playing an active role in supporting three very different Costa Rican populations.

As a family-owned and community-oriented organization, CPI provides first rate language instruction while maintaining a focus on various projects that benefit the development of our local communities and the families where our staff and students study and live: Heredia, Monteverde and Flamingo.

In Heredia, CPI sponsors a youth soccer team, Equipo CPI. CPI donates the uniforms and transportation for the team. Through this endeavor, we hope to train a future Costa Rican soccer star!

Students studying at Heredia whom wish to volunteer their time may do so with CPI and the Humanitarian Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by former Peace Corps volunteer Gail Nystrom, which is dedicated to the most marginalized populations of Costa Rica. The CRHF provides opportunities to exchange friendship, goods, services, and financial resources for critical needs among different cultures, socio-economic classes, and language groups.

Fiesta de navidad - A GREAT SURPRISE:

Each year CPI Heredia sponsors a Christmas party for children from low-income families.

On December, the CPI staff and a group of students visited the Association "Niño con cariño"  (a girl´s home), in order to deliver the  presents donated by the students who studied at CPI.

We started this activity by enjoying a delicious pizza and refreshments all donated by the school!  After lunch, we all got together and Santa Claus delivered a very special gift to each of the girls.  All of the girls  were so pleased and excited with the presents!  The money in cash that some of the students kindly donated, was given in  cash to the Director of "Niño con Cariño".  She was very grateful and emphasized that the money would be used to buy food for the girls.

Our special and sincere thanks to all the students who collaborated on this noble cause.  Good bless you all!

CPI Monteverde supports the community with financial donations to community projects, such as: the Creative Learning Center, a school which offers affordable quality education to local students with an extensive scholarship program, to supporting the local Red Cross organization and the local public high school. In 2007, CPI Monteverde supported the arts by financing the publishing of a poetry book written by locals and helping Marco, a local young man on a full scholarship to Georgetown University who required assistance in purchasing his plane ticket to arrive in the US and fulfill his dream of studying at Georgetown. CPI organizes placement for individuals and groups with local conservation projects, such as: the Coope Santa Elena, the local Coffee Co-op, which works with local farms to incorporate sustainable development in the field of agriculture, and other reforestation projects such as Finca Ecologica and Habitat for Humanity.

CPI Flamingo has made several financial donations to the community, including the Mariachi Monument in Sta. Cruz, the improvement of the local roads as well as projects assisting local low income families in the surrounding communities.

In addition, Flamingo is helping the local Monkey Park by placing student volunteers in the park and by sponsoring an abandoned Toucan, donating funds for his food and care.

Come check out the newest member of the CPI family while you are studying in Flamingo!