Their Mission is All about Hope

The North Country is helping out a Central American Country

Story by Bob Bennett

Photos courtesy of Jim Lundy

"I wake up every day and can’t wait to get to work," says Debbie Blow, as she sits in her office surrounded by photographs of children her organization, The North Country Mission of Hope, has helped. "Those are the faces of hope," she says. 

Her walls are also lined with other pictures. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Workers' Movement to Feed the Poor in the U.S., are side by side in one frame. And four women who were raped and murdered by Nicaraguan soldiers are in another frame.

Blow has worked at The North Country Mission of Hope as the executive director since 1998. The mission began as a one-time venture to provide relief to Nicaragua after it was ravaged by Hurricane Mitch, the most devastating storm strike the area. The country is currently the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. After she traveled to Nicaragua for the first time in November 1998, she knew it had to be something that would continue.

"It just evolved," she says.

Oscar Flores, vice president of the mission, and a citizen of Nicaragua, says, "The response was just amazing. I had expected maybe ten people to come help. We ended up with five times that."

Blow adds, "We come back more filled than we can imagine. "It’s like there is a great big table at a birthday party where there are a variety of gifts. To change lives, and to save lives, is amazing."  

According to the mission’s statement, their goal is "to assist in making lasting improvements in extremely disadvantaged areas." It provides healthcare for over 20,000 people, education for over 350 students, and shelter for over 180 Nicaraguans. The mission also provides food to the Nicaraguan children through a program known as Children Feeding Children, in which school-aged children in the North Country help raise money to combat hunger in this Central American nation. Seventeen to eighteen high schools and fifteen to sixteen colleges have helped with the effort, Blow says.

"I’ve held a baby in my arms who was dying, and a few days later it did die."

The mission became a recognized non-profit organization in 2001, which means all donations are tax deductible. Blow says there is no paid staff working for the mission, but she does receive donations that people give her for her time.

"This is unique," Blow says. "But money should go where it was meant to go. Ninety-eight percent of our donations go directly to the cause. That’s a difference." 

Every day people help in different ways, Blow says. She has her office because Seton High School donated the space to her. A lawyer, an accountant, and certain truckers all work for free to help out. All of her office's printing needs are also free.

"We even had a woman come to us after winning at Bingo who donated $5 because she said we restored her faith in charity organizations," Blow says. "That will feed a child in Nicaragua for a month."

Although the mission is a Christian organization, people who are not religious, and people from other faiths, help as well, Blow says.

"Sometimes people who are interested come to me and say, 'I'm interested in helping, but I’m not spiritual,'" Blow says. "I tell them that everybody is spiritual. You don’t have to be religious. We’re about hope in a world that needs hope."

The fifty-two people who went on the first mission trip to Nicaragua, and everybody who has gone since, has shown that they harbor hope, Flores says.

Some of these people have been Plattsburgh State University College students. They held a bottle drive that raised $50. This is enough money for a home shelter, Blow says.

Allison Swick-Duttine, director of the Center for Fraternity and Sorority Life, was the site leader on a mission trip in January 2007. She went with nine fraternity and sorority members. The sudents handed out rice and beans, and worked with disabled children at a free clinic in Nicaragua.

Two of those members were Whitney Jahn, president of inter-sorority life organization, and James Biegner. Biegner and Jahn say they mainly played with the kids in the clinic and made them happy. Biegner explains that he wanted to start getting more involved with school activities, so when the opportunity arose to go to Nicaragua, he accepted.

Jahn notes that she was inspired by Flores who brought up the idea of going on a mission trip. She says she was gratified to work with children in the community who were poverty stricken. "I felt like I formed bonds with them," she explains.
 
"Every time someone new goes I hear the same thing from them," Blow stated. "They say, 'I had a mission moment.' It gives people a sense of worth and changes people's lives."

These "mission moments" arise from the experiences that people have helping others, Blow says. "The Nicaraguan people are genuine in their gratitude."

"They had to go in with gasoline and burn bodies because they were irretrievable."

Blow described one situation in which workers were having difficulty trying to construct a shelter out of the volcanic soil in the area. The shelters are basically mud huts. "One little girl saw them struggling and walked up and used the very last bit of her water to help them finish," she says. On another occasion, Blow says she saw a Nicaraguan woman cut off most of her shirt to wrap a child’s wound. "The truly poor share what they have because they know what it is to need," she says.

But despite the Nicaraguan people's gratitude and the wonderful feeling Blow and Flores get from helping them, the work isn’t always easy, they explain.

"I’ve held a baby in my arms who was dying, and a few days later it did die. It’s the struggle of these realities that makes it tough sometimes. You realize that there are always thousands more for every one person that you help," Blow adds.

Flores described a similar situation.

"The area where the hurricane hit is actually north of where we are working. You can’t get to the northern section yet because of the mud slides there. They had to go in with gasoline and burn bodies because they were irretrievable," he says.

"Another thing is when the hurricane hit, only 100 were reported dead, but up to 50,000 were missing," Blow says. "I’ve seen children literally living in a dump, fighting over a dirty banana peel."

"It’s tough when we have to limit the number of people who can go on the trips, too," Blow says. "Once, sixty people signed up, but we could only take forty. You just have to hope they reapply."

But the mission is pressing on. In the future, it will expand the number of children being fed, improve access to medical care, provide a better water source, and improve the means for storing drinking water.

Blow believes these are the key issues. But she also says that people need to start thinking about the privileged lives that we live in this country. "What do we do to deserve living here? And what do they do to deserve living there?"

What is your favorite local charity organization?