Dan and Angie Bastian launched a popcorn company from their Mankato garage in 2001 with a few simple goals in mind: They wanted to put aside extra money for their kids’ education and provide a healthier popcorn alternative.
Over the course of the following 16 years, they accomplished that and more. The couple built Angie’s Boomchickapop into a snack food industry giant, eventually selling the company to Conagra Brands in 2017.
For the last four years, they’ve used those kernels of success to launch a yearlong volunteer program that is sending recent graduates from Saint John’s University and College of Saint Benedict to teach English at a technical high school called Escuela Emprendedora in Diriomo, Nicaragua.
“We saw an opportunity to create a volunteer English teaching program at the local Nicaraguan high school,” said Dan, a 1990 SJU graduate who spent a year volunteering in Central America (Belize) himself after graduating college.
The Bastians wanted to augment the school’s English department with native speakers to enhance the students’ speaking fluidity and listening comprehension, which Dan said opens new doors of opportunity for Nicaraguans and represents a way out of poverty.
The school is part of a nonprofit called Opportunity International Nicaragua (OIN), a spinoff of Opportunity International. The global nonprofit pioneered microlending to countries in poverty-stricken areas focusing on financing, training and mentoring entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Fifteen Johnnies and Bennies have participated in the volunteer program since the first cohort in 2021. Students start the English teaching program in the middle of June with three weeks of one-on-one classes at a Spanish immersion school in Granada, Nicaragua while staying with a host family before Emprendedora’s second semester starts in the middle of July.
The program — which is not technically affiliated with CSB and SJU — has drawn rave reviews from past volunteers who’ve taken part.
“It was incredible,” said Tim Spesia, a 2021 SJU graduate who was part of the first group of volunteers. “It was a huge launching point for me to be able to travel and work in a setting that opened my eyes to the impact a nonprofit group can make.
“I knew I wanted to do a year of service after I graduated and improve my Spanish speaking skills,” continued Spesia, a political science major and Spanish minor at SJU. “I’d studied abroad in Spain, and I looked into working with the Peace Corps. But the idea of being able to live with other recent CSB and SJU graduates for a year and make a difference in a place like (Nicaragua) was really appealing to me.”
Spesia said the program allowed him and his fellow volunteers to completely immerse themselves into community life.
“I loved the sense of camaraderie with all the other teachers there,” he said. “I was so inspired by their passion. The school has been open close to 15 years, and a lot of the teachers have been there since the school started. They’re really committed to their educational mission.
“We became part of the school family. We participated in all the events. We had a soccer team with our fellow teachers. We helped out at parades and festivals. And I just loved working with the kids. It was really impactful to have the chance to get comfortable in a classroom setting like that.”
Spesia said the program allowed him to draw on the values that formed the cornerstone of his education at CSB and SJU.
“Giving back is such a big part of the CSB and SJU experience, and this was a great opportunity to spend one quick year supporting an incredible organization and forming real connections,” he said. “I can’t speak highly enough about Dan and Angie. Everyone who knows them loves them. They’ve been so generous to put this program together, and they’ve really sought our input on ways to improve the experience.”
Spesia added that the Bastian’s support for volunteers continues after the year of service.
“Beyond that, they’ve helped me make connections in Washington, D.C.,” said Spesia, who just completed graduate school at American University and now works for an international consulting committee. “They put me in touch with a lot of different people.”
Applications for the program are due in mid-February of each year, and Dan said the hope is to expand the program from four volunteers to eight soon.
“We’ve done this for four years now and it’s become an awesome program,” he said. “It’s truly a life-changing experience, not just for the kids, but for the volunteers as well.”
Interested students can email [email protected] for more information and find application details here.
