We are committed to:

• Assisting a limited number of worthy projects run by creative, compassionate people with a high degree of responsibility and accountability.
• Stretching the money we receive to help as many as we can, using only a minimal amount, less than 10%, for foundation overhead expenses.
• Maintaining personal relationships with both donors and project leaders.
• Communicating to our donors about the effect their gifts are having.

As I watched the small four-seat Cessna lift off from the dirt mountain airstrip in May 1980, I couldn’t have imagined how the next few hours I would be spending in this remote Huichol Indian village would change the course of my life.

I was visiting my brother Bill Hanson, a medical student at Autonomous University in Guadalajara. His medical school friends had invited me to fly in their small plane on one of their clinic rounds early on a Sunday morning. Each Sunday and Thursday they flew to the mountains where they were providing medical care to the Huichol Indian families living in the rugged Sierra Madres. Due to the Huichols’ location, a mountainous region with no roads, the medical students and their four-seat Cessna provided the only medical and dental care for the Huichol families. These indigenous farmers were semi-nomadic, spending part of each year harvesting corn and beans which they planted in the thin soil near their mountain ranches. A significant portion of the year they walked through the mountain passes or by burro to celebrate ancient rituals, oversee governance of their communities, and, hopefully, receive medical attention. At times the small plane served as an ambulance.

But on that Sunday in May, when we touched down on the 900 ft dirt runway the villagers didn’t ask for medical care. Instead, they asked us to bring a supply of their staple food, dried corn. A prolonged, deadly drought had made them desperate for food. Volunteer pilot Bill Baxter jumped back into the plane to fly away and buy a large sack of dried corn in a Mexican town. He returned in a few hours with the corn which enabled the villagers to make tortillas for a few weeks until they could find alternatives.

Returning to the US, I carried the Huichol’s needs home with me in my heart. Within a few months I had registered the name Amistad Foundation as a non-profit in order to gather funds for their survival. (The name was later changed to Amistad International.)

Because we began our work in a Spanish-speaking country, we chose the name Amistad, which means friendship in Spanish. We have always believed making friendships with those we serve was of utmost importance. The result has been a network of trustworthy Amistad colleagues and friends around the world.

My mother Adora Hanson, her sister Mary Louise Reiber, and my husband Tom Kotoske were the first to encourage my hopes to bring food and medical care to the Huichol Indians.

In 1996, Amistad began expanding its humanitarian services around the world. We first assisted volunteer Paula Leen in building Murwira Children Home in Zimbabwe. (Due to a drought, the orphanage was later relocated to a nearby property with access to water. It is now called Kuda Vana Children’s Home.)