Hello my name is Michael. I have lived in the US for 84 years but the first 9 years of my life were spent in Germany. My childhood experiences were colored by war and the traumatic  conditions of refugee life. This experience pushed me to aid our new immigrants in my second Global Volunteers service trip to San Juan, TX last year. Our team worked with refugees from South America crossing our border to Texas, and also helped provide food bank services to some of the local poor Hispanics.

My 2022 service trip helped me realize I could still travel and contribute toward helping kids and their families, which I have done all my life as a former teacher, parent, college professor, as well as a volunteer tutor and mentor. Barbara, our team leader inspired me to figure out how I could serve effectively with this team. Our team was fortunate to be able to donate toys and playtime to the kids in the respite center so that their parents could rest from their tough voyage to our country. I used my Spanish for this too.

My first trip in 2013 for GV was to Monopoli, Italy where I taught English to high school students during daytime and young professional people in the evening. You can see me doing that in my profile picture . I enjoyed my time in Italy because the people in this small town were so friendly and accommodating even though I did not speak Italian. 

Barbara let me know about a new GV trip she is going to lead to Espanola, New Mexico later this year. In this program we are going to help disadvantaged Hispanic kids in elementary school with their schoolwork as well as do some maintenance work on their school buildings.

I signed up for this trip even though my budget does not permit it. This is my first fundraising effort and a work in progress. My previous trips were financed out of my own savings. If you can help me along on this journey, I would appreciate it.  Your donations go directly to GV and are 50% tax-deducible. Thanks, Michael