Covenant House Guatemala “Feeds Phil” 

Phil Rosenthal, creator and host of the popular Netflix series “Somebody Feed Phil,” visited Covenant House Guatemala and the girls and young women in our Guatemala City house while filming season 8, episode 8 in the Central American country.

Naturally, Phil’s food and travel show was drawn to Covenant House Guatemala, known locally as La Alianza, to sample some of the delicious bakery items our youth are learning to make in our culinary program. Phil gushed over the sweet empanadas de manjar our girls prepared for him!

In season 8, he travels to Amsterdam, Basque Country, Boston, Tblisi, Sydney and Adelaide in Australia, Las Vegas, Manila, and Guatemala. Throughout its run, “Somebody Feed Phil” has accumulated more than 12.4 million views on Netflix. Phil explores the food and scenery of each place he visits and often spends time with local organizations providing critical services to their communities.

So, beyond our bakery program, Phil was drawn to the heart of our mission to wrap young people — who are just 12 to 18 years old and overcoming abuse, trafficking, and exploitation — in Covenant House’s relentless support and unconditional love.

“It’s hard to overstate how effective this program is,” he said.

Passing the microphone to one of our residents, Angélica, Phil asked her to explain what Covenant House means to her. She said, “I think that La Alianza supports us immensely. They especially give us great emotional support.”

A Safe Haven

Our care for the girls and boys at Covenant House Guatemala begins with safety, creating, in the words of CEO Carolina Escobar Sarti, a “safe haven,” where youth recover from their experiences, reclaim their childhood and adolescence, and begin to live into a future without violence or abuse.

We offer physical and mental health care, educational support, vocational training (as in the culinary program, for example), and family reintegration services (where appropriate).

Covenant House Guatemala has three locations: a safe house for girls in Guatemala City, a safe house for boys in San Juan del Obispo (the only such facility for boy survivors of trafficking and exploitation in Central America), and a drop-in center in the border town of Coatepeque, across from Mexico.

Covenant House has programs in 34 cities across five countries: the United States, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Our children and youth in Latin America are the youngest across our federation.

Your donation is the most immediate and impactful way to support Covenant House’s work in Latin America.