The Ranger Online

Issue date: 6/30/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Andrea Marquise Aishwarya "Ash" Patel, 16, organizes operating room supplies while volunteering at University Hospital for her second summer. Aishwarya lives in Houston and comes to San Antonio to stay with her aunt and gain experience so she can become a surgeon one day.

Media Credit: Andrea Marquise Carlin Greene, 13, and Eva Anderson, 16, prepare lunches with their youth group, from the Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church in Wichita, Kan., at the San Antonio Food Bank.

Media Credit: Zahra Farah Jeremy Lincicome, 16, Morgan Koehn, 17, and Michael Williams, 17, volunteers with the Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church in Wichita, Kan., clean ice chests for the San Antonio Food Bank.

In the small east African country of Uganda, the children are a grim reminder of the nation's gruesome past. As the region breathes a sigh of relief after nearly two decades of barbaric civil war, the orphan population is at a staggering 17 percent.

When Abilene Christian University graduate Byron Rogers, 23, arrived in Uganda with a group of Christian volunteers eager to help rebuild the war-torn community, he was touched by an enthusiastic orphan named Diggy.

Rogers' experience has become increasingly common, as more young adults choose to travel abroad to volunteer each year. Participants believe the experience is beneficial to both those receiving help and those giving it.

"Every day when we woke up, we would walk out of the house, and there would be a small group of children just waiting for us," Rogers said.

One morning, the 9- or 10-year-old boy named Moses (affectionately called Diggy) walked with Rogers and his friends to the soccer stadium across the city.

"We lost him in the crowd, and we ended up visiting with another college-age man," Rogers said.

"About an hour-and-a-half after not seeing him, we yelled 'Diggy, we're leaving,' hoping he was around, but thinking he took off."

Diggy's head popped out of a small window in a nearby building, where he had waited for Rogers while watching the soccer game.

"It taught me a lot about being fully present and committing, and devoting myself to people," Rogers said. "He really was with us the whole time, even though we didn't know it.

"Trips like this have the power to shape us and mold us into who we are going to be for the rest of our lives."

International volunteering has become a booming phenomenon. Generally, it combines volunteer work with tourism and cultural interaction for a variety of prices, ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Clark High School senior Molly Spratt, 17, recently spent 16 days on a humanitarian trip to China. Her trip was coordinated by People To People, an international volunteer organization.

In China, the group visited famous landmarks, toured cities and provided a helping hand to locals - playing with children, assisting farmers with their crops and helping the disabled.

This fusion of volunteerism with tourism has led some to wonder if these trips abroad signal an increase in sensitivity to global issues or are a reason to spend the summer traveling.

"Going overseas is one incentive," Rogers said. "People like to travel, and that can be a good thing. But the people I've known have been driven overseas with a passion for God or humanitarian efforts. People seem to have had something change their lives, and they want to give that away."

Spratt's mother, Deborah, 46, believes the humanitarian work is the root cause for the trip.

"Experiencing other cultures is very attractive, but neither one is exclusive to the other," Deborah Spratt said.

"They wouldn't go if they weren't volunteering. Those kids are there for all the right reasons. They went to help fellow human beings."

Over the past few decades, volunteering has evolved from being a simple act of kindness to a prerequisite or recommended activity for admission to college. Both Texas A&M University and the University of Texas list volunteer work as an "important" admissions factor.

"I love the experience of using what I learned here," Aishwarya Patel, 16, said of her volunteer work at University Hospital in San Antonio.

For the past two summers, she has helped stock operating room supplies and hopes to pursue a career as a surgeon. "I can use what I've learned here at school and in my future."

Patel volunteers at the hospital a minimum of 75 hours over the summer, and at least 30 in school through Distinguished Service Graduate Program, a volunteer program offered by Wunsche High School in Houston, where she attends school.

"The program encourages students to do community service so colleges will accept them," Patel said.

Johanna Tesch, volunteer coordinator for the San Antonio Food Bank, has worked for nonprofit organizations for several years. In that time, Tesch has seen an increase in teen volunteerism for several reasons.

She said about 60 percent of the Food Bank's volunteers are in high school or college. Of those, about a quarter are there for required school volunteer hours and 10 percent for court-ordered hours, while the rest are encouraged by their parents.

"Regardless of their intent or alternative motive, volunteering is good," Tesch said.

"Whatever their reason is for coming, if they can walk away with something, maybe even later in life, they will remember what they learned volunteering."

As global volunteering becomes more popular, some question if domestic needs are being overlooked.

"Somehow, issues in other countries are bigger than our own," Tesch said. "These volunteer organizations advertise very well, so kids see on TV people there need this or that, but are not aware of hometown USA."

Yet Tesch does believe any form of volunteering is important to society, and a volunteer presence is vital to global unity.

"A lot of these countries need us," Tesch said. "We are starting to really connect globally with our neighbors ... It's just unfortunate that many people don't know the need in our own country."

But domestic travel also has become popular among teen volunteers in recent years. In particular, many churches have begun taking students to different cities to help these communities.

Jason Unruh, 30, sponsors an annual mission trip by his church, Pleasant Valley United Methodist, in Wichita, Kan. The group, made up of 12- to 18-year-old students, spent part of their trip volunteering at the Food Bank, cleaning out coolers and sorting food.

However, Unruh believes the trip offers even more benefits to kids than just a chance to volunteer time to others.

"We could have done work in our hometown, but there are lots of benefits to traveling," Unruh said. "The kids see things they wouldn't normally see back home. They see a large warehouse used to feed the hungry. They are even seeing federal inmates who have to be here.

"These things that they see give them a sense that there is a larger world out there than just Wichita, and there is a bigger need."

Those involved in volunteering believe the experience is invaluable and is something teens should be doing while they are still young. Teens can experience the world before making life-changing decisions.

"You learn early what you want to do," Patel said. "I wanted to be a pediatrician before volunteering, but working in operating room supplies made me want to be a surgeon. It exposes you to knowledge and helps you experience different careers."

Adults who work with volunteers as coordinators or sponsors seem to have one particular ideal in common.

"Always strive to give back to the community," Tesch said. "Money is great, but the sense of satisfaction you get (from volunteering) is so huge. You just can't walk away from an event without a smile and the feeling that you helped someone."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools