This will be my third fall in which I organize a "packing party" for Operation Shoebox, a non-profit organization that sends down shoeboxes and medical supplies to the Honduran children impoverished by hurricane Mitch. I have procured all of the items fo be put in the shoeboxes, along with the shoeboxes themselves. In addition, I have attended the board meetings since I began and have earned the position of "Youth-to-Youth Chair", or Student Representative. A few people on the board and I have led a training meeting for other students so that they can also set up the type of system I have in place with Operation Shoebox at their schools.

In the late summer I begin to collect shoeboxes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, hard candy, toys, pencils, pens, pads of paper, and anything else I can lay my hands on to pack into the shoeboxes. Every fall I somehow convince a group of volunteers from my school, Catlin Gabel, to help me put together all the boxes. The boxes we pack are then brought over to the Operation Shoebox storage space and later sent down to Honduras by the U.S. Air Force. In Honduras, the shoeboxes are taken to impoverished villages or parts of large cities, such as Tegucigalpa, the capitol, to be distributed to children greatly in need of them. Though Honduras was an impoverished country to begin with, hurricane Mitch weakened the economy even more and caused many people to lose their homes, land, livestock, and lives. The shoeboxes made through Operation Shoebox may not be the key to success in reviving the poor country, but at least the children can feel loved and receive some important items, such as a toothbrush and some toothpaste.

I have been taking Spanish for several years now and feel comfortable using it to communicate. The dentists, on the other hand, were not so proficient and felt that they could use someone to translate. When they learned of my interest in travelling to Honduras with them and that I could speak Spanish, the dentists realized that I could serve as their wanted translator.

So in June of this year, my mom and I went down to Honduras with a group of four dentists who were part of Operation Shoebox. In Tegucigalpa, Honduras we met up with Cadena de Amor (Chain of Love), a non-profit organization that sends Honduran children in need of serious medical care north to the United States for surgeries or other procedures. The leader of our dental Brigade was Dr. Lilia de Larios, a Honduran dentist herself who is also the head of Cadena de Amor. Before setting off to the small village of Marcala, located near the center of Honduras known as La Paz, we loaded up a giant truck with dental equipment, 1500 shoeboxes, and food to last us a week or more. We had an old rickety bus and a van recently sent down from the U.S. by Operation Shoebox. In total our group was sixteen people strong, which included four American dentists, three Honduran dentists, six dental assistants or educators, and one cook (so the team would have no chance of getting sick from the food or water), all of which were volunteers. The town of Marcala welcomed us by having a ceremony in the Mayor's office where all of us were introduced and Dr. Larios and the mayor gave speeches. The mayor's speech had to be translated into English for those members of the team that did not speak Spanish. We set up the equipment that afternoon in a large, warehouse-looking parish and divided off the back part with a large hanging sheet to separate our makeshift classroom. That Sunday afternoon started off with a bang and the constant circulation of children did not cease until Friday afternoon. The children would come in classroom groups from their villages and would sometimes walk for up to four hours there and back, whether in blazing sun or thundering rain. They were always very eager to see us and would crowd around the windows to get a peek inside. As the children entered through the side door of the building, they would go to the back classroom and sit on benches to listen to me or the other Spanish speaking volunteers talk about how to brush their teeth, floss, sanitize their water, and wash their hands correctly. Then, groups of five or six would be handed toothbrushes with toothpaste and they would go to the back bathrooms to brush their teeth. The children would receive a shot of antiseptic, then see one of the dentists. By the end of the week we had seen 470 children and done 2131 procedures, which in reality was probably only about a fifth of what could have been done to those children's mouths had there been more time and better tools.

On Friday, our last day of work, we finished up the dentistry, raced home to eat a bit, then returned to the parish where at least five hundred children waited for their shoeboxes. Mothers with infants also crowded the street, hoping to bring home a shoebox, too. I helped usher the kids into lines of boys and girls and showed them where to go after they had gotten their shoeboxes. As the children received their shoeboxes, they happily stumbled around the side of the building into the side yard and waited for everyone to get one. The other team members who were not giving out shoeboxes at the time mingled with the children as the ecstatic kids proudly showed them what they had gotten. Amazingly, some of the shoeboxes my "packing party" made last fall were given out. After all the children had been given their shoeboxes, some of the mothers who had been waiting with infants in the hot sun received shoeboxes specifically packed for infants. Through the mayhem, the joy was apparent in the air.