There is a special sauce in what we do.

Padre Wasson Foundation is a family more than it is an institution. We are connected to each other.

We share the good and the bad times, we feel responsible for each other, we’ve got each other’s backs. The decisions we make are based on humanity, not on money.

Father Wasson and the community he created raised -and keeps raising- healthy, happy, mature, and ethical young people, helping them navigate a thicket of broken homes, illiteracy, substance abuse, lack of economic opportunity, gang violence, and other personal and social risks.

Father Wasson’s formation methodology has been demonstrably effective in countering such upheavals and equipping his “children” with personal, academic, and professional skills for resilient leadership in each phase of their lives. They receive a positive vision to succeed personally and professionally, enrich their families, serve their communities, and contribute to the essential work of building their societies by addressing inequality and caring for each another.

Inspired by Padre Wasson’s teachings, the mission of our Foundation is to nurture and continue the cycle of care in a loving, stable, secure family environment by keeping not only brothers and sisters, but also their extended family, together. Our community models its values through serving the communities we are all part of: We are a family.

It’s true, family is a complicated thing, particularly in the world of today when it can be made up of two adults, or one, or three, or a dozen….of the same sex, different sexes, or trans-sex. In fact, the family as a unit has become almost impossible to describe. When people talk about family, they tend to talk about family structures and units. But we visualize the «how» of family, not the «what», and certainly not the unit. We are a global family!

We are a community that has formed not around structures, but around shared behaviours and attitudes. By redefining family in terms of what it stands for, rather than in terms of its structure, we are open to a new and exciting territory. We know what it’s like to be real, to make mistakes, to ask for forgiveness and to receive second chances.

In our family, we also understand the special bond that exists between brothers and sisters, parents and children and we know, because we have seen it with our own eyes, that the children who are given security and love are the ones who will thrive in the world of tomorrow.

That‘s why our mandate has never been clearer and more imperative. We are trying to ensure that every member of our family has the chance to belong, to be cared for and embraced, to experience the bond of brotherly and sisterly affection and to know that they have a place in the world.

Because only when we are able to see ourselves through the eyes of others, can we truly know who we are and how much we have to give. And we are this family: the world’s first global family, the children of Father Wasson.
Feeling like family rather than an institution is a core principle to us, and applying this approach, we are reinventing the way we deliver support: by doing it together, as a family!