What is   ?

Imagine, for a moment, that you have a different kind of life. You are eight years old, one of six children living in with no running water or electricity. You live in area known as the Arrolla, and your home is a frail shack, riddled with holes that let in the wind and the rain. Last winter, your little sister died in a house fire as the family tried to keep warm by a burning fire inside your wooden shack.

For most of us in America, this is impossible to imagine. But it’s the reality that many children awaken to every day in San Felipe, a Mexican town just 125 miles south of the U.S. border. As Americans and Canadians, we have the resources to assist the people of San Felipe, bettering their lives through opportunity and education, not handouts.

It’s an even exchange, one that enhances the lives of everyone involved.  By feeding others, we nourish our own souls, often spiritually impoverished by a life of material over-abundance. For our own young people, volunteering in Mexico is an opportunity to enlarge their worldview. We’ve seen firsthand the remarkable changes that occur when young Americans experience how others live. And when we change ourselves, we change the world.