Melinda Allen, a nurse at Ashley Regional Medical Center, is adept at helping people.

She’s a wife and a mother of two young children — plenty of opportunity for service right there. But she was still nervous about her decision to participate in a recent humanitarian trip to Kenya as a volunteer mentor for Utah YouthLINC, saying it was “way out of my comfort zone.”

Allen’s comfort zone is the Uintah Basin, where a dollar can buy anything off the value menu in town, where antibacterial dispensers are found in every public place, and even the poorest of its citizens can expect the basics: clothing, food, shelter and medical care.

Allen, who is working toward her bachelor’s degree in nursing, said she used to feel frustrated when there wasn’t enough time or money to take care of things around the house. That’s changed since she returned from Africa.

“They don’t have anything. What they do have they shared with each other and us,” said Allen, explaining that when her group of volunteers was preparing to leave, a chicken was presented to them in appreciation for their service.

“It would have fed them for a week,” she said. “If it had been an egg-laying chicken it would continue feeding them.”

Allen contrasted the philosophy of those in the Kaimari village she visited with that of Americans.

“When we have something we keep it to ourselves and flaunt it before our neighbors to elevate our status,” she said. “That doesn’t happen there.”

The volunteers couldn’t smuggle a chicken on board their flight home and its puny wings wouldn’t take it all the way to the U.S., so the bird was re-gifted to the Catholic nuns at the convent where YouthLINC volunteers were staying. The convent provided beds, crude indoor plumbing and meals — true luxuries in the developing country.

One of the most profound activities Allen and her health committee participated in was touring a hospital in Kenya.

“Conditions were so primitive there … we toured the lab, the OB department,” she said. “They were dealing with stuff that we haven’t had to deal with for 100 years or more. Even infection control. They don’t wash their hands between patients. They don’t even have the facilities, and they’re dealing with a water shortage.”

Allen said that she and her friend, fellow nursing student and co-worker Brenda Henderson, used antibacterial gel between patients — one of the products they had packed in their personal baggage — while conducting an immunization clinic.

“They had no idea what we were rubbing on our hands,”Allen said, adding that antibacterial gel was one of the products donated with the variety of medical supplies.

Allen is grateful she left her comfort zone long enough to start seeing through a new pair of eyes; eyes that now see relationships and possessions very differently. That difference was already known to Henderson, who was born in Kenya. She came to the U.S., enrolled in school and completed the requirements to practice as a registered nurse.

Allen and Henserson applied as mentors for YouthLINC together last fall. As part of the health committee, and mentors in general, they were required to organize donations of medical, hygiene and education supplies and get them to the Wasatch Front. They also had to meet with youth volunteers on their team and oversee lesson preparation on pertinent topics that would be delivered to youth and adults in Kenya.

One of their most daunting tasks however was to find financial sponsors for the trip. The unexpected generosity of Ashley Regional, Dr. Michael Catten, Dr. G.P. Massand, and the Basin Anaesthesia Group relieved the women of that tremendous obligation. Allen’s husband, Riley, also contributed through his company, Allen Sales and Service.

“They were all so supportive, on an emotional level, too, ”Allen said, recounting her nervousness about the trip and the responsibilities involved.

But, when Allen started to talk about her trip to Africa people stepped forward to help, like Teresa Haslem, another ARMC nurse who volunteered to organize the women in her LDS ward to collect materials and put together 20 school kits. These kits were made up of cloth book bags filled with school supplies for Kenyan schoolchildren.

Ashley Regional also allowed Allen and Henderson to collect unusable medical products such as sutures from opened surgical kits and outdated Betadine solution. All of these odds and ends were stored in a box, just waiting for distribution.

The day before departure, all the donations for the Kenya team were laid out. Each team member was to fill a duffle bag with 50 pounds of goods to transport apart from their personal baggage to Kenya. Volunteers, including the youth, were required to haul the baggage over 8,000 miles from airport to bus, to van, and then sort and re-pack and haul it to various African villages.

When Allen helped distribute the supplies and saw the wide smiles and felt the grateful hugs of the African people, the months of fretful preparation and strained arm and back muscles were forgotten.

Allen said her experience has definitely made her a lifetime humanitarian. Indeed the other Uintah Basin YouthLINC mentors and volunteers: Kassie Penton and Amy Farnsworth and her daughter, Rachel Farnsworth, echo the same sentiment — that this trip changed their perceptions of life and how they want to live it forever.

Seeing With Different Eyes

Penton, now 16, was on Rachel Farnsworth’s volleyball team last year. The Roosevelt teen noticed her friend bent over a stack of papers and asked her what she was doing. Farnsworth said she was applying to be a YouthLINC volunteer and, if accepted, she was going to fulfill a service project in Kenya.

A jolt of excitement ran through Penton. She sat down and began firing off question after question. Farnsworth told Penton that her mother, Amy Farnsworth, a grade school teacher in Vernal, was also applying as a mentor.

That night Penton spoke to her legal guardians and grandparents, Lanis and Curtis Dastrup about going.

“They were all for it,” she said.

It helped that YouthLINC isn’t a fly-by-night organization. They have requirements, like a GPA of 3.0 for applicants and letters of recommendation. In fact Penton said the application process reminded her of applying for a college scholarship.

When youth apply they sign up for one of five committees: construction, health, teaching, micro-enterprise, vocational training or cultural exchange. They work with the committees to organize and complete specific projects. Right from the start they realize YouthLINC is serious about service. It’s not a vacation.

Penton applied for the health committee.

“I’ve wanted to be involved in the medical field since I learned about the medical problems with children in Africa, probably since the sixth grade,” she said. “I want to be a LifeFlight paramedic or trauma nurse, anything in emergency services. I love the adrenaline. I’ve taken some medical classes through (Uintah Basin Applied Technology College).”

Penton used all of her savings, earned hour by hour selling boxes of candy and bags of popcorn at Roosevelt Theatre, for airfare and expenses, about $3,000. She also received financial support from Dan Karren of Dan’s Tires. YouthLINC provided the rest of the money for the trip, a sponsorship which granted once students complete all 100 documented service hours and attend their monthly YouthLINC meetings during the year, which help prepare them for the trip.

Penton knew she would be working with children, so she decided to sign up as a volunteer at Tiny Tykes Day Care. She worked with toddlers to school-age children and became comfortable around them. This experience helped when she was among the Kaimari people in Kenya.

“I learned patience, which really helped,” she said. “The kids always wanted to hold my hand. They crowded us wherever we went. It’s just crazy down there, for some of them we were the first white person they’d every seen.”

Penton was a white person quickly tanning under the African sun as she traveled on foot from mud hut to schools constructed of cinderblocks to teach lessons to Kenyan children and adults on personal hygiene and AIDS awareness. She also kept immunization records while Allen and Henderson administered shots. She sweated under the sun while working to build new classrooms, hauling block, and mixing sand to make concrete with the Kenyan crew.

“You learn respect for the things you have. I love my family even more now. There is so much poverty and illness there. I will never forget it,” she said, adding that she is now interested in joining the Peace Corp, studying medicine and serving in Kenya again.

Books, Baggage, Blessings

Amy Farnsworth had been waiting for her daughter, Rachel, to turn 16 so they could serve a humanitarian service mission with YouthLINC. Last fall they applied: Amy as a mentor with the learning committee and Rachel with the cultural exchange committee.

On June 23, the Farnsworths heaved their baggage into the back of their car and set out for the Salt Lake International Airport. They made connections in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Rome before touching down in Ethiopia. From there they traveled by bus to Nairobi, Kenya, and then boarded a safari van that took them into Kaimari.

The mentors and youth volunteers were immediately swarmed. The schoolchildren greeted them with singing, dancing and skits as part of an opening ceremony.

“They were so happy to have us there, they gave us such a warm welcome,” Amy said.

The first thing that took her breath away was the kindness of the people, the second was the living conditions. The Farnsworths just couldn’t absorb the poverty that surrounded the Kaimari people’s daily lives.

“Most of the classrooms in Kenya are condemned by the government, but the people still use them,” Amy said, pointing the her photos of stick and mud huts with rusted, corrugated tin roofs that provided shade but did little to keep the rain out.

As a grade-school teacher, Amy was appalled at the lack of supplies, the rudimentary wooden benches where children spent the majority of their daytime hours sitting, and the shortage of paper, pencils and books.

“They teach by rote. They put a math problem on the chalkboard. The children repeat it several times until they all know it,” she said, adding that she was impressed by the fact that the curriculum is in English and that most secondary students are fluent in both writing and speaking English.

Amy said the parents value education, in fact they fund a portion of their child’s education in primary grade school and all of their education in secondary school. She said disciplinary problems are almost unheard because of the importance of education. One headmaster of a school told her that in rare instances where a child misbehaves he or she is sent home and the parents discipline the child themselves.

Amy said the people in Kaimari were required to bring a portion of their daily water allotment to the construction site of the new classrooms, which was used to make concrete grout to hold the stone blocks in place.

“It’s a joint effort, not a hand out,” she said. “YouthLINC works as a team with the community. There was a construction crew there. We helped them build, but they were in charge.”

Although it is winter in Africa, the air was hot and humid. Volunteers dressed in lightweight shorts, skirts and T-shirts and sandals. Whenever the van rolled into a schoolyard the headmaster and students greeted the mentors and youth volunteers.

The American visitors then taught lessons and played games with the children. Amy was delighted to learn that the duck, duck, goose game played in America was played exactly the same in Africa but with different animals — zebra, zebra, lion.

Many schools in Kenya do not have books of any kind. YouthLINC volunteers donated dozens of story books and a woman who has served with YouthLINC in the past obtained a grant as part of her master’s program to buy hundreds of new textbooks that she then distributed to Kenya’s village schools.

Amy said micro-libraries were organized and one school had the following rules: 1. No books on the floor. 2. No ripping pages. 3. Always put books in their right place.

Watching her daughter serve people in Africa and seeing how the people responded to that service was a cherished experience, according to Amy.

“They spend so much of their energy trying to survive. It effects the women and children, the seniors and the disabled the most ... the need is so great,” she said. “You feel like you’re making a difference, but there’s so much that still needs to be done.”

The Farnsworths got financial assistance for their trip from Rhino Linings of Roosevelt, Perry Insurance, and a private donor who wished not to be named.

“Now that they’re fired up from the Africa trip we’re hoping that they dig in and help out their local communities — that’s what we want to happen — we want to build lifetime humanitarians who will work in their own communities,” said Judy Zone, founder and executive director of YouthLINC, which was organized in 1999.

Zone was a secondary school teacher who visited Kenya with her daughter and returned with the idea of creating a program that would help youth understand the connection between local and international service. She said YouthLINC partners with local and international Rotary Clubs, such as the Vernal Rotary Club, who contribute annually to fund local and overseas projects as well as unaffiliated generous individuals who fund sponsorships.

YouthLINC international projects include service trips to Kenya, Mexico, Peru and Thailand. Cambodia will be added to the list in 2011.

YouthLINC will require $140,000 to fund scholarships next year and to operate the program, Zone said, adding that an annual benefit event helps the organization raise funds. Individuals who would like to learn more about the program can visit www.youthlinc.org or call (801) 467-4417.