Every Pepperdine student knows the university aims to position students and alumni for lives of service, purpose and leadership. But recent graduates have taken their alma mater’s mission to heart, using their skills to organize philanthropic efforts abroad and turn a service-oriented lifestyle into their vocation and passion.
For Brooks Baumgartner, a 2011 alumnus from Portland, Ore., a spring break trip with Pepperdine’s Project Serve program alongside 12 classmates inspired him to move to Huehuetenango, Guatemala and serve others. There, Baumgartner has volunteered at an orphanage called Fundacion Salvacion (FS), home to whom he calls “90 of the most beautiful children in the whole world,” for the past nine months.
Three months ago, while working with the Guatemalan children, Baumgartner discovered his dream to build a bilingual school for the orphans. That goal is the impetus of his nonprofit organization More Than Compassion (MTC).
“MTC has been created with two purposes in mind: provide for the daily needs of the kids at FS (by providing funds to pay for things like food, water, and shelter) and also to prepare them to succeed in life beyond the orphanage walls (by building a bilingual elementary school, which will provide kids with a quality education and the ability to speak English),” according to the organization’s newsletter.
According to the newsletter, MTC is preparing to make its first payment on the land where the school will be built on April 10. So far, the organization has hired eight American interns to teach English classes, and they plan to hire an additional four Guatemalan teachers to instruct Spanish classes. Construction of the facility will begin in May, with the school projected to open its doors to students by January 2013 — the start of the Guatemalan school year.
MTC plans to debut a 12-minute video on Youtube about the stories of the children who live at FS. (Watch MTC’s “This is Our Story” campaign video)
In conjunction with the video’s release, MTC will be selling t-shirts featuring their campaign slogan (“This is our story, but it’s not over”) for $25 including shipping. All proceeds will go to directly toward building the bilingual school, according to MTC’s newsletter.
“When I donate to something, I never buy a shirt but just give money. BUT I plan on buying one of these [shirts],” senior SGA President Mimi Rothfus wrote on Facebook. “I have been able to visit Huehuetenango, Guatemala twice, and what my friend Brooks is doing down there is amazing.”
In addition to purchasing t-shirts, MTC also encourages child sponsorship for $30 per month (a program administered via morethancompasion.org and donating money to the school’s construction. Recently, Baumgartner’s cousin and her husband offered to match all donations up to $25,000.
