How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I was raised on welfare by a single mom. I understood what it meant to live without. I understood what it meant to have Christmas provided by strangers. I was always very grateful and humbled by their kindness. I understood what it meant to be on the receiving end of kindness. Because of my childhood, I want to be able to help our families in Guatemala become self-sufficient with real income opportunities. Our families work extremely long hours, just to earn a little and provide for their families. Their situation is not because they lack education. It is that they lack opportunities. This is why I work so hard for our families in Guatemala, so their kids grow up to have more opportunities.
I believe that volunteers are able to learn about service by serving others. I believe that our Guatemalan families learn how to receive kindness by having volunteers in their community and in their homes. Be Humanitarian has been working diligently to ease the burdens of everyday life in Guatemala for the last 10 years. We firmly believe that we can positively impact our communities by providing educational and income opportunities and supporting self sufficiency programs, such as our nutrition program, garden tower projects, and preschool. My goal is to bring goodness to the world.
So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Today, we’re fundraising to build a large community center and volunteer housing space in our village. We recently bought land and finished refurbishing our sewing center to create income opportunities for our moms. We have been providing thousands of meals a month to a community in need. We started our nutrition program in conjunction with our preschool program to focus on nutrition and education to fight generations of malnutrition. Currently we have 30 kiddos attending school. We have kiddos whose parents and grandparents don’t know how to read and write. In school, we help kids love to learn and encourage their families to support their education. We are elated to be able to watch our kiddos crawl out of their shell of shyness. We wanted to build an environment where they can thrive, believe and become confident with themselves. The great thing about what we’re doing now is we get to watch our kiddos and their families prosper.
