OUR TEAM

Delores Nims visited Guatemala annually for fourteen years, studying Spanish and volunteering in educational programs, first Safe Passage and later in AVIVARA. She is committed to helping young people obtain an education because this is the path to upward mobility, healthy families and communities.

Growing up as a poor farm girl in Washington State, neither teachers nor parents supported her educational aspirations. However, her Lutheran minister obtained a four year university scholarship for her.  This changed not only her life but the life of her children and grandchildren, all now committed to education.

After earning a master’s degree in Social work at the University of Washington in 1972, she was employed by both public and, private organizations as a counselor and teacher. Retired, she currently lives in Ashland, Oregon and is active in a variety of social justice organizations.

 When Ellen Craine first visited Guatemala in 2008, she fell in love with the indigenous communities surrounding Lake Atitlan. Her two weeks at Casa Rosario language school ( www..casarosariospanishschool.com) inspired her to continue studying the language and led her to a year’s stay in Ecuador. 

Ellen has worked in the field of education and child development most of her life: first as a Montessori teacher, then as a social service provider, and most recently as a mediator in the field of child welfare. From her experience living in several countries overseas, she recognizes the importance of access to education, particularly for girls. To quote Malala Yousafzai, “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.” 

Ellen has lived in Ashland, Oregon since 1980. Her interests include hiking, fiction writing, and youth mentoring.  

 Laura has worked at a variety of different occupations, but always worked with children. 

She earned a master’s degree in Human Development and later another in Special Ed Education. 

Laura has worked as a research assistant at Stanford University studying the effects of daycare on young children, as a probation officer, a Montessori teacher, a teacher at an alternative school and later, teaching Special Ed. She spent years working as a social worker with children with developmental disabilities and their families. 

Laura attended a Spanish school in San Pedro, Guatemala in 2008, www.casarosario.com.  Her teacher was Rosa Cumes, our key local contact for this project. They reconnected when COVID started in 2020, and Laura has been taking Zoom Spanish lessons since. Rosa’s passion was helping girls go to school. Laura, Rosa and several others put their passions together and Atitlan Alliance was born.      

For the past 15 years, Rosario Cumes Reanda has been a single mother of two. Living in the village of San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, Rosario has been a Spanish Language Teacher at the Casa Rosario School for 17 years. For the past two years she has taught Spanish via Zoom. She currently has nine students from different countries.

Rosario’s passion and vision are tourism and working on behalf of her community. Trained as a professional secretary, she studied law for seven semesters but stopped studying due to financial constraints. For sixteen years, her goal has been to help single mothers.  As the child of a single mother, she slept on the floor of a house without electricity or the comforts of home, much less food. As a single mother herself, Rosario has worked triple shifts so that her little ones wouldn’t lack for anything.  For this reason, she has wanted to create an organization in her community so its children might have a better future. With the help of great friends like Delores, Laura, Bill and Ellen who believed in her, she formed Alianza Atitlan (The Atitlan Alliance), in order to provide education for more children and young people, aided by the contributions of many sponsors. During the difficult pandemic years, she helped a number of families by providing emergency food, and she has given Christmas presents to more than 60 children, each gift earning a smile. In her words, “We would like you to be part of our project. Guatemala needs you".  

 Bill has spent his career as a home designer, first teaching at San Diego City College, then running his own design business  working with residential contractors. Recently semi-retired, he has always been well read, aware of world problems, but without a clear sense of how to help.

When COVID hit, he pulled on his college Spanish and began Zoom lessons with Rosa in San Pedro, Guatemala.

With 4 children, 4 step-children and 13 grandchildren, he already had a great interest in helping children.

Atitlan Alliance seemed like a natural fit for him.

Rea Thomson first traveled to Guatemala at age 10 to study Spanish at the University of Antigua. During that trip, her mother and her stayed in with a local family/ boarding house which had young girls working in the home who were only a few years older than herself. These girls were no longer in school at ages 12 and 14 and the older of the two was to be wed later that year. This was an impactful insight into the life, to see her peers, only a few years older, working and talking about marriage. 

Rea grew up to get an undergraduate in marketing and an MBA. After more than a decade in marketing including running her own marketing business, she semi-retired to raise children and focus on family. 

Rea has never forgotten those young girls in Guatemala and when the opportunity presented itself to join this organization to further the education of children who would otherwise be forced into adulthood, it was a must to help! 

Spencer began studying Spanish fifteen years ago after a trip to Mexico with his swim team. Since then, he has traveled extensively in the region, including most recently to Lago Atitlan, Antigua, and Chiquimula in Guatemala. In 2021 he began conversation classes with Rosa and learned about Alliance Atitlan. When Rosa mentioned that the project had received formal non-profit status, and that the board was looking for another member, Spencer enthusiastically volunteered and was accepted as a board member in July 2022. In his professional life, Spencer is the Vice President of Operations and Chief Engineer at LND, Incorporated, designers and manufactures of nuclear radiation detectors. He received a bachelor’s in physics from Bates College and a Masters in Cultural Anthropology from NYU. In 2017, he was awarded a patent for a neutron detection module