Mapleton college student volunteers in Guatemala
By Jennifer Buzza
Special to The Star-Herald
How many college students do you know that would happily give up their Christmas break to fly to an impoverished country to build a clinic (without the use of power tools), sacrifice the long President’s Day weekend to ride in a van from Maine to make a “midnight run” to New York City to hand out blankets and clothing to the homeless, and willfully participate in a 30-hour famine? Well, I have had the privilege to talk with one college student who can proudly attest to all of those things!
Photo courtesy of Courtney Hoffses
MAPLETON RESIDENT and college junior Courtney Hoffses recently returned from her international service trip to Guatemala with students and staff from St. Joseph’s College. Pictured here with Hoffses is four-year-old girl, Beverly, a young girl that she is sponsoring through Partners in Development. For information on how you can sponsor a child, log onto www.pidonline.org.
Courtney Hoffses, the 20-year-old daughter of Robert and Lorie Hoffses of Mapleton, is a junior at St. Joseph’s College in Standish. She is a political science major and is extremely passionate about international service. In fact, following her graduation in 2012, Hoffses plans to join the Peace Corps.
According to Hoffses, an international service trip is offered to students at St. Joseph’s College each year during winter break through Partners in Development (PID), an organization based in Ipswich, Mass. with a mission to help the developing world through economic and educational programs. According to their website, www.pidonline.org, they “work in direct partnership with those living in extreme poverty (those living on less than $1 per person per day) through a national overseas staff in Haiti and Guatemala. PID provides material, financial, and educational resources, which enables the poor to construct and implement their own programs for development.”
Deciding she “couldn’t miss an opportunity like this,” Hoffses had to choose which country she wanted to visit, Haiti or Guatemala. After choosing Haiti, she devoted the past year to researching the country and Dr. Paul Farmer, a doctor and anthropologist who helped found a hospital whose services are free to all Haitians in a poor section of the country. Shortly before the students and staff were scheduled to depart, it was determined that their safety may be in jeopardy in Haiti due to the violence surrounding the country’s recent elections. Those organizing the trip decided to postpone the trip to Haiti until later in the semester. The students scheduled to go to Haiti were given the option to wait and go to Haiti later in the school year, or join the group going to Guatemala. After her “initial disappointment,” Hoffses decided to join the others and go to Guatemala, and she says, “I am very glad I did!”
Photo courtesy of Courtney Hoffses
DURING HER NINE-DAY TRIP to Guatemala, Courtney Hoffses, of Mapleton, and her group from St. Joseph’s College helped build a medical clinic in Concepcion, cleared an area for a playground, and assisted with a vacation Bible school. Here she is pictured with some of the young children from the village she worked in. Hoffses will graduate in May of 2012 and has aspirations of joining the Peace Corps.
Once a week during this past fall semester, the students and staff going on the service trip had classes to prepare them for their visit to Guatemala. They learned some basic background information about the country, as well as some very “elementary phrases” that would likely be used during their stay. They viewed pictures and videos from previous years and their trip leader even taught them how to barter effectively. Hoffses admits that all the preliminary information was helpful, but “you really can’t learn about service in a classroom. You have to get out there and do it.”
“Guatemala was an intense, rewarding, and shocking experience. I really wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see,” Hoffses said. “I knew about the poverty and living conditions. I’d seen pictures of villages we were going to be working in, but when you get there and it’s real … it’s so much greater.” Hoffses witnessed people living in one-, sometimes two-room “houses” with dirt floors, leaky ceilings, exposed wooden walls with holes and cracks.
“They are the happiest people I’ve ever met. They are so loving and grateful and they never have the ‘why me’ attitude,” she said. “They don’t have much, but they are so happy. That is an incredible thing to witness, especially for a young person from the United States that attends college, eats three meals every day and has access to things like electricity and clean water.”
While in Guatemala, the group of three faculty members and 17 students helped construct a new clinic in a village in Concepcion, cleared an area for a playground and worked at a Vacation Bible School. According to Hoffses, most of their work focused around construction, but they did have permission to attend the Bible school when they wanted. After working on the clinic, Hoffses has a whole new appreciation for power tools! All the construction tasks were done by hand. They mixed cement by hand and carried water from a stream to the building site. Lines were formed between all of the workers to eliminate having to walk back and forth. They passed buckets of water, cement blocks, rocks and cinderblocks from one person to the next. Trenches had to be dug that were three-, four- and five-feet deep, using only shovels and pickaxes. The group also had to dig to install a well and leach field. Wheelbarrows were used to move piles of gravel and sand that would be moved again the following day.
The plot of land located right next to the clinic was donated by a local farmer with the stipulation that a playground be built for the children of the village. Members of the team had to clear the land that was covered in trees and plants over seven-feet tall using only machetes. Recalling the hard work, Hoffses said the plants were gone in “a remarkably short period of time.”
Vacation Bible School was a much different setting compared to the clinic, but “just as demanding.” Approximately 200 children, ages four through 14, attended the morning and afternoon sessions. The children in each session were divided into four groups and rotated between stations. Those stations included an English speaking station, sports station, craft station and a Bible station. Hoffses worked the sports station and was “equally as exhausted at the end of a VBS day as a construction day!” She recalled the children playing hard all the time. They love “futbol” and are very skilled. The children would kick off whatever shoes they were wearing so they could play barefooted. The younger children enjoyed playing tag and jump rope. Hoffses said the children thought it was “very funny when they swung the large rope for me and it got stuck on my head because I was so much taller, so they did it every time!”
The Guatemalan children were very loving and showed great interest in the Americans. One of the long-time volunteers with Partners in Development told the group from St. Joe’s that to the children, Americans are “millionaires” that took time out of their lives to go and help them. It is hard for those children to believe that others would do such a generous, selfless thing for them. Hoffses recalled that they couldn’t walk anywhere without a large group of children appearing and following them. They would chant “gringo, gringo,” when the Americans would walk by, which means “foreigner.” Whenever the group walked the main road outside the village, every person in any passing vehicle would turn and stare. “Twenty pale college kids, slightly sunburned, taller than everyone by at least a foot, covered in dirt from the construction site, really stood out!”
PID provides the opportunity for anyone interested to sponsor a child in Guatemala or Haiti. Hoffses is sponsoring a four-year-old girl named Beverly. Her mother is 23 and her father is 29. Her mother attended school through the third grade, but the PID does not have any record of her father ever attending school. Beverly has three siblings: a six-year-old brother, three-year-old brother and one-year-old sister. Her father doesn’t have a regular job; he works when he can and earns the equivalent of $120 per month. The information Hoffses received from the PID profile of Beverly’s family stated: “They live in a rented house which has no bathroom, running water or sewer service. They use the river for water and as a bathroom. They pay a neighbor to run an extension cord from their house so that they can have electricity.” Through her donation of $25 per month, Hoffses is making sure all the children in Beverly’s family receive medical care, that Beverly can attend school for free for as long as she chooses, that she will be provided with a school uniform, a pair of shoes, and have one guaranteed meal each day. “When I was deciding if I should sponsor a child, I figured I could afford less than a dollar a day. That family deserves a better life and since I’m in a position to help, it’s important to me that I do.”
Rather than relaxing during the school’s four-day President’s Day weekend, Hoffses joined other students from St. Joseph’s College on a Midnight Run event. On Sunday, Feb. 20, those participating packed lunches and sorted through donations of clothing, blankets, and toiletries that were collected on campus. That Monday morning, they loaded all the donations into a school van and were on the interstate, bound for New York City, by noon. They were scheduled to arrive in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. between 7-8 p.m. By 9 p.m. they were on their way to Manhattan to perform the “run” which involves distributing all that they collected to the homeless of the area. After all the supplies were given out, the group returned to Dobbs Ferry to take a quick nap and start the return trip north early Tuesday morning.
“I attended a Breakfast Run two years ago, so this is my first Midnight Run. The great thing about the Midnight Run is that instead of just donating a blanket or pair of socks (which is awesome and greatly appreciated), you get to see where the items go,” Hoffses said. “We are encouraged to sit down, eat and talk with the people we are serving (at St. Joe’s we call that ‘Solidarity with the Poor’). You put faces and stories to the need, which is something you just don’t get from putting your clothing and blankets into a donation bin … and that’s when service really starts to work. Problems won’t be fixed by just throwing money and donations at issues. We need to take the time to understand the issues facing us all before we can come up with the effective solutions.”
As you might have guessed, Hoffses’ service doesn’t stop there. Also in February, St. Joseph’s College Social Justice (SJC2) hosted its second annual 30 Hour Famine. This is an event where participants fast for 30 hours as a group and participate in service and awareness activities. The group at St. Joe’s sold friendship bracelets with the slogan “Be a Friend to the Hungry.” Those participating in the famine also accepting individual pledges. According to her research, Hoffses states that it costs an estimated $30 to feed a child for a month, so if someone pledges $1 per hour and a participant completes the 30 hour famine, that donor has helped feed one child for a month. Water was available for those participating, along with Jello and orange juice for those needing a little something extra. Last year, Hoffses completed the 30 hour famine with only water. “I even sat through a barbeque after a softball game at hour 29 and didn’t eat anything!” For more information, visit their website http://30hourfamine.org/home.
Hoffses already has plans in place for her spring break, too. No, it doesn’t include a trip to a warm, sunny location with a sandy beach. She will be taking part in the Spring Break Workfest, an alternative Spring Break trip offered by St. Joseph’s College every year. This year she will be heading to Vermont to work with at-risk youth.
“Nine days in Guatemala wasn’t nearly long enough. I didn’t want to come home at all. Even though the work was much more physically demanding that I am accustomed to, I wish I was back there right now,” she said. “The Guatemala service trip definitely reinforced my decision to join the Peace Corps and I am excited to start that part of my life.”
