The year the Hogarcito opened, on land donated by a La Fortuna family, built with funds the town raised through bingos, raffles, auctions, and cabalgatas.
Refuge of its kind for at-risk children in La Fortuna and the surrounding communities, caring for newborns to age ten while a permanent home is found.
Round-trip transportation, coordinated by Nayara for guests who reserve a visit through the concierge.
In short: Through Amigos de Hogarcito, guests at our Arenal resorts can reserve a visit to Hogarcito San Juan Bosco, La Fortuna's transition home for children, with free transportation coordinated by Nayara. Visits are supervised, photography is restricted, and every rule exists to protect the children. Bring groceries, not a camera.
Most excursions in Arenal show you what the rainforest can do. This one shows you what a town can do.
Child welfare organizations have spent years warning against casual orphanage tourism, and the warnings are deserved. Drop-in visits that treat children as an attraction do harm in exchange for a feeling. So the first thing to know about visiting Hogarcito San Juan Bosco is what you will not do there. You will not take photographs. You will not exchange contacts or communicate with a child unsupervised. Every interaction is managed by the Hogarcito's own team, and the visit follows a formal child protection framework, developed with Anywhere Costa Rica, that puts the children's safety and dignity above every other consideration.
That strictness is not a limitation on the experience. It is the experience. A visit designed to protect its hosts is the only kind worth offering, and the only kind we would put our name on.
A quarter century ago, a group of neighbors in La Fortuna decided the region's most vulnerable children needed somewhere to go. A local family donated the land in Barrio Z-13. The town raised the construction funds the way small towns do, through bingos, raffles, auctions, marathons, and cabalgatas, with help arriving from El Tanque, Monterrey, Los Angeles, and the villages between. Doors were knocked on one by one until the house had a refrigerator, a stove, and beds. In 2000, the Hogarcito welcomed its first children.
The Hogarcito is a transition home. It provides a safe, stable, protective environment for children from newborns to roughly ten years old who come from abusive or high-risk family situations in the La Fortuna area, while a permanent home is found for them in Costa Rica. Some children stay for days or months. Others remain longer. During that time, constant care is not a luxury. It is the work.
The tias, the caregivers the children live with daily, are joined by a psychologist who provides weekly individual and group therapy, a nurse who delivers daily health care along with speech and physical therapy, and a teacher who reinforces what each child learns at school until they reach the level that belongs to them. All of it under the oversight of Costa Rica's national child welfare authority, in a house the town has never stopped supporting.
Guests at our Arenal resorts can reserve a visit through the concierge, and Nayara coordinates round-trip transportation at no cost. At the home, trained staff and the Hogarcito's caregivers lead everything. Depending on the needs of the day, guests may join arts and crafts that strengthen fine motor skills, games and physical activities that build coordination and social development, educational play that encourages creativity, or nature and wildlife activities that grow ecological awareness.
The ground rules in full, because they matter. Photography and social media use are restricted. Direct communication or contact without supervision is not permitted. All communication runs exclusively through the Hogarcito to guarantee the children's safety and dignity. Information about the children is shared responsibly and their privacy is respected.
What the children gain is resources, attention, and encouragement during a crucial stage of their lives. What you gain is a truer picture of the town you are visiting than any viewpoint can offer.
Guests who want their support to outlast the visit can sponsor a specific child through a structured model managed entirely by the Hogarcito. Sponsorship contributes directly to that child's daily needs: food, clothing, medical care, educational materials, and developmental activities. It involves no legal adoption, no guardianship, and no relationship of ownership of any kind. It is financial and welfare support, focused on the quality of a child's life during their stay.
Sponsors may receive periodic updates prepared by the Hogarcito's staff, centered on the child's overall development: growth and health, educational and play activities, emotional and social progress. The information is shared responsibly, and all communication is managed exclusively by the Hogarcito.
One rule defines the whole program. Sponsorships end when the child is placed in a permanent home. The goal is meaningful support without dependence or unrealistic expectations, which means the best possible outcome of your sponsorship is that it stops being needed.
The most meaningful thing a guest can pack costs a few dollars at any supermarket in town. The Hogarcito keeps a standing list of what the house actually uses.
Pantry staples. Rice, sugar, cooking oil, beans, pasta, lentils.
Cleaning supplies. Detergent, liquid soap, bath soap, powdered soap, bleach, disinfectant, toilet paper, paper towels, brooms.
Personal care. Shampoo, toothpaste, baby powder, wet wipes, diapers, body lotion, combs, hair ties, hair gel.
If you would like to bring something that is not on the list, the concierge can check with the home before your visit. Nothing is too small. A house full of children goes through all of it
Our resorts answer to their places, and a place includes its people.
La Fortuna is the town that fills most of the roles at our Arenal resorts. It is the community where we build homes alongside the families who live there. And it is the town that built the Hogarcito with bingos and cabalgatas twenty five years ago and has kept its doors open ever since. Supporting it is not charity arriving from outside. It is neighbors acting like neighbors.
In La Fortuna, some of our neighbors are still children, growing up in a house their town built for them while they wait for a family of their own. Visit them the right way. Hands full, camera away.
Reserve through the concierge at any of our Arenal resorts. Transportation is on us. The groceries are on you.