Retablos are devotional or votive paintings, often on rectangular sheets of tin. These stories recall dangerous or threatening events that actually occurred, and which the person survived, thanks to the intercession of a sacred person. They are made as a way of thanking the sacred person for protection in precarious situations, such as surviving an illness or earthquake. On a strict definition, this class of ex-votos should display the protected humans in the dangerous situation, and the sacred person who protected them, usually with an inscribed explanation of the events, with the date and location.

Our Kindergartners and 1^st Graders told a story in their picture of an event that occurred – an illness or accident they or their family experienced, and they wrote their general thanks that things came out ok in the end.