A vision gives purpose to all we do.

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Meet the Founders.

A man with long wavy hair and a beard, smiling, standing in front of a white background with a yellow and black mascot or logo.


  • Founder - Director

    Bob’s Mom was a Court Clerk and his Dad was Chief of the Kenmore Fire Department. He grew up in Western New York in the Buffalo Niagara Falls area with his two sisters Patty and Susie and attended St Andrew’s for eight years and Cardinal O’Hara HS for four years until he graduated in 1973. Bob then majored in Math at Jamestown Community College and SUNY Buffalo.

A woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing a green dress and large earrings, standing in front of a wooden door.


  • Human Resource Director

    Maricela was born in El Salvador the youngest of seven siblings. Her Dad was a Civil Engineer for the Salvadorian Government and her Mom was a Bookkeeper for forty years. After graduating from HS, Maricela began working as a secretary in El Salvador and eventually was accepted into an exchange student program to attend Durham Business College in Phoenix, Arizona where she graduated in their bi-lingual secretarial program. Bob was working at Durham Business College when Maricela arrived to study in 1977. They fell in love and were married a year later in 1978.

  • It was during Bob’s first trip to El Salvador in 1982 to meet Maricela’s family that he heard God calling him to help the children of El Salvador. Seeing the street children during the war begging for newspapers to cover up and sleep on the streets impacted him in such a way that Mi Casa was started seven years later in 1989. As Bob tells it “I was always waiting for my calling in life. I always knew that God would call me to serve Him one day but I never imagined in a million years it would be to serve Him by caring for and raising orphaned and abandoned kids!  The day that God called me EVERYTHING CHANGED! It was like God did a heart transplant on me and gave me a little piece of His heart for children. At the same time, He downloaded the purpose of my life. I have never looked at a child again the same. When I see a child I see Jesus and exactly what He saw when he said “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these…truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.

Financials.

92 % of all your donations have gone directly to the children. Our goal as a Board is always to keep our overhead below 10% and to use all donations in the most cost-effective way possible. We are actually closer to 95% going to the children over the past 20 years.

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Testimonials.

“It’s important to support mothers and teach them how to respond to their babies”
Dr. Alexandra Harrison

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

“It's such a blessing to see these kids in this environment just growing”
John and Rose

Mi Casa Volunteers

“Right now, I have seen so many kids change their life forever”
José Ortiz

Mi Casa Board Member

A woman and a young girl sitting at a stone table outdoors near a beach. The woman is smiling and holding the girl, who looks directly at the camera with wide eyes. The girl has dark, wet hair and is wearing a dirty pink shirt and shorts. The background features the ocean, waves, and a few people in the water, under a partly cloudy sky.