Jose Roberto Gil
Program Director
The Program Director for Bay Area SCORES middle schools has been running summer camps since 2006 in El Canton Las Minas, Chalatenango, El Salvador. He is the founder and Executive Director for Travel for Peace Education and Soccer program. Roberto holds a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education and is a national licensed soccer coach. He also holds a Master Degree in Social Work. He is originally from El Salvador. His mother sent him to America in 1986 because of the civil war. The army was forcing teenagers like Roberto to go to war. After arriving in San Francisco, Roberto played soccer in the mission district and later got involved as a coach and mentor.He has been working on various projects in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Cuba, ranging from running soccer and poetry summer camps in rural areas, helping students continue their college education through a scholarship program in El Salvador. His mission is to empower students to become agents of social change through interacting, working directly with communities through social service projects, soccer, and writing.
Amber Bugarin Astillero
America SCORES Bay Area Program Coordinator
Amber grew up in the LA area and played soccer from the time she was four. She still plays recreationally today. She recently graduated from the University of San Francisco. She joined SCORES as a program coordinator in 2018 after discovering the organization through a friend who was volunteering. Amber feels especially privileged to be teaching poetry. “The students get to figure out who they are through another form of expression,” she says. “They make themselves vulnerable and share with me who they are. It’s amazing.” She also coaches the IFC Storm Girls-a competitive soccer team and she also is a Program Director for the SCORES Alumni Program
Ernesto Menjivar
Teacher at El Canton Las Minas School
Ernesto is the former principal (2001-2011) and current teacher at El Canton Las Minas school. Ernesto’s tireless dedication to the school and community is well known in the area. He has succeeded in applying for grants for such things as school supplies, materials to build a concrete driveway for the school, bathrooms for the school, and more. It is because of Ernesto’s care and leadership that Roberto chose to approach him in 2006 with the idea of this after-school program. Each year during the program, Ernesto spends his week-long vacation time volunteering in the program. Each afternoon of the program, Ernesto’s family generously invites volunteers to lunch in his home, which is unfailingly delicious, locally-grown food, most of which is grown and harvested by the family. Ernesto and his family have also opened their home to allow a couple of volunteers a place to sleep during the program. In addition to working in the school and community of Las Minas, Ernesto is a professor of sociology at a college at the base of the mountain. He is a remarkable role model for the students of Las Minas.