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“On my first trip to Haiti, we saw many people in improvised wheelchairs— plastic lawn chairs tied with bedsheets and fit with old bike wheels. Afya used custom-built wheelchairs designed specifically for their needs. One young teen was never able to feed himself because he couldn’t hold his head up— now he can. It must have taken eight people eight hours to build one wheelchair. He totally got it and was so appreciative. This work has changed me. Afya is the best therapy—it’s a place where you go to heal and be healed.” (Cynthia is chair of Afya’s advisory council.)
C L A I R E G RU M M O N With four other students, Claire, a high school senior (and a steady volunteer at the warehouse), developed an Afya program to share the arts with Haitian children. An electronics store gave the organization a deep discount on cameras for the kids to use. “When I first got to Haiti, I was very overwhelmed,” says Claire. “There are no traffic lights; cars are swerving.” She says she questioned the plan. “I wondered, what could art do here?” But ultimately there was so much joy—“not just in the kids when they were dancing or acting or taking pictures— but in their parents when the children shared their work. I saw that it mattered.”
MARCH 2015
152
REALSIMPLE.COM
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CYNTHIA ODELL
M I R A N DA MALD ONAD O Miranda, a college student studying nursing, was volunteering for the first time at Afya. “I love it already,” she says. “I feel like I’m doing something big here. It opens your mind and teaches you new things— I’m learning that even if you don’t have money, you can give.”
