Hygiene Kit

University Students Share Through Service-Learning Programs

BY April Chalk

A few years ago when BYU students volunteered in Southeast Asia, they spent their time working in the fields. Today when students volunteer there, they spend their time teaching the people English. Why? The people they were working with told the students that they already knew how to work their fields and could do it alone, but if they knew English, they would be able to leave the fields and get a better job in the city. Read more

Wendy & Giff Nielsen: Giving Gifts Back to the World

Giff and Wendy Nielsen have been married for 33 years. They have six children and nine grandchildren. They have lived in Houston for thirty years starting when the Houston Oilers drafted Giff in May 1978. He played quarterback for the team for six years before retiring in May 1984 to join the Channel 11 News anchor team.

The WON Heart Foundation, founded by the Nielsen family has served the Houston community and the world. The mission of this family foundation is to find ways to make the world a stronger, safer, more peaceful place…one heart at a time. The Nielsen family firmly believes that there has never been a greater need for traditional family values and open- hearted generosity to help in healing a troubled world. Some of The Won Heart Foundation successes include raising money to help bridge the gap of the latch-key kid revolution, and hosting a charity golf tournament, which has raised nearly five million dollars for the past 21 years funding the building of Houston area parks and a YMCA after-school program.

Giff is on the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America, Sam Houston Area Council. He has been inducted into the BYU Hall of Fame, the Utah Hall of Fame and into the College Football Hall of Fame.

The most important career accomplishment either of them has is their family. The world needs strong families with loving connections and a desire to reach out and share with communities.

Medical Kits in Demand: Opportunity to Aid

Medical shipments are in high demand and include a number of different items. Instructions for hospital gowns and scrub tops and pants are available at the official Church Humanitarian Site.

All medical supplies with an expiration date must have at least 13 months of
good date left when the items are donated. The following first-aid items in original packaging are needed: Read more

Make a School Kit for a Child in Need

Place the following items in a durable cloth bag (see photo & instructions)
· 4 unsharpened pencils
· 1 rubber pencil eraser – approximately 1×2 inches
· 1 pair blunt nosed scissors with metal blades
· 1 pencil sharpener
· 1 straight edge ruler – 12 inches, with metric
· Glued or spiral bound notebooks with lined sheets, 8 x 10 ½,
or 8 ½ x 11 inches
Notebooks should total approximately 450 sheets
Do not include more than 6 notebooks
· 1 set assorted colored pencils
at least 12 per set, approximately 7 inches long

Read more

What Else Can I Do to Serve the Needy?

Many of us  see suffering in our own communities and throughout the world. We want to do something to help, but don’t know what to do.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught:

A true Latter-day Saint is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this Church or in any other or in no church at all, wherever he finds them.
(Times and Seasons, 15 Mar. 1842, 732) Read more

Mormon Serviceman Reunifies Refugee Families

When American servicemen including Virgil Kovalenko left war-torn Vietnam in 1972, they promised Vietnamese Air Force Captain Nguyen Ngoc Thach and his wife that they would not forget them. Though South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975, Virgil was able to return to Southeast Asia 10 years later and help not only the Thachs but also other Church members relocate to America.

In 1982, Virgil and a small group of veterans and missionaries responded to a series of letters from the Thachs by founding the Veterans Association for Service Activities Abroad. Under Virgil’s leadership, the 300-member organization has since helped to resettle and/or reunify hundreds of refugee families from Vietnam and other countries ravaged by war.

Besides organizing volunteers to work with hospitals, clinics, and schools in Vietnam, Virgil has worked in the Ukraine, where he gathered 12 tons of medical and educational supplies. He has also worked on humanitarian projects in Mexico.

Virgil retired from active military duty in 1983, completing nearly 30 years of Navy and Air Force service. He holds a BA degree from BYU and a PhD from the University of Utah. He and his wife, Lela, have five children.

BYU Magazine Alumni Service Awards 1997

BYU Service Squad

Mormon students at Brigham Young University engage in “random acts of kindness” for an hour a week as part of their activity in BYU’s Service Squad. Whether it’s garbage bags needing a haul, or lightening a student’s load by performing a deed on their doorstep, students participating in BYUSA’s Service Squad forget themselves and go to work for others during this dedicated hour each week.

Regulars and newcomers are welcome to participate and enjoy the gratitude and rewards as unsuspecting peers respond when volunteers show up at their doors in orange shirts offering to help with simple acts of service.

According to the program director, Ashley Pearl, BYUSA’s Service Squad group meets every Wednesday night outside the student government office before splitting up into groups to visit on-and off-campus housing, looking for spontaneous ways to aid and assist others.

Vomocil, an actuarial science student from Marshfield, Wisconsin., and Lopez, Vomocil’s roommate and a pre-acting major from Honolulu, Hawaii, caught the contagion. Apparently, the Service Squad showed up on their doorstep one semester, and as a result,Vomocil decided to personally volunteer with the group.

“It was just a good time,” he said. “Even doing something simple like taking out the trash … you can make somebody a little happier.”

Kearl said Service Squad provides an easy way for students to get involved. “It’s only an hour a week,” she said. “It’s short and sweet. You just show up.” Students can volunteer when they have time, assist in planning or take specific roles within the Service Squad, she said.

This semester, the Service Squad will offer a date night, a dinner and occasional treats. Volunteers will also be working with BYU wards to identify specific needs, Kearl said. “We’re always looking for new ways to serve people,” she said.

The Service Squad meets at 7 p.m. every Wednesday outside WSC 3400 and welcomes volunteers.

Newborn Kits

If you would like to assist in creating newborn kits for those in need, particularly in developing countries, please find directions below, and donate items to the LDS Humanitarian Center.

Place the following items in a heavy-duty, two-gallon sealable bag. Remove the air before sealing:

4 single thickness cloth diapers

• Approximately 25×27 inches

• Birdseye Cloth or diaper flannel, 100% cotton

• No pre-fold or disposable diapers

4 diaper safety pins

1 pair booties or baby socks

2 bars of soap 3.5-5 ounces each (Ivory or other
non-allergenic brand)

1 receiving blanket (36×36 – 45×45 inches)

1 layette gown

• No footed sleepers, buttons, zippers or strings

• Size: Newborn to 6 months, Fabric: cotton knit

• Layette gown patterns are available at the LDS Humanitarian Center, Humanitarian Service Rooms and at www.humanitarianservices.org.

Fleece
Cut a 36×36 – 45×45 inch square of medium weight fleece.  Serge, hem or blanket-stitch edges.

Flannel:
Method 1
Cut two 36×36 – 45×45 inch squares of cotton flannel.  Serge the edges with right sides facing out.  Sew large ‘X’ corner to corner or a 10 inch square in the center to keep fabric from shifting.

Method 2
· Cut two 36×36 – 45×45 inch squares of cotton flannel.  Place the squares together with right sides facing in.  Sew squares together with a ¼ inch seam around the edges, leaving a 6 inch opening.  Turn right sides out.  Baste opening and topstitch around entire blanket for durability.  Sew a large ‘X’ corner to corner or a 10 inch square in the center to keep the fabric in place.

For questions, please call the Center at 1-800-453-3860 ext. 26060.  The official Church site is lds.org/humanitarian.

Muslims & Mormons: Quilting for Children of Trauma

The Relief Society, the largest women’s organization in the world, was created as a vehicle for Mormon women and  interested friends of other faiths, to reach out in relieving the suffering and respond to urgent needs that present in the world.

In Riverside, California, over 100 women, Mormons and Muslims, engaged in conversation and made quilts for Project Linus–an initiative to provide blankets  to children of trauma. The second joint service effort proved fruitful for both recipients and participants.

As Cindy Marinez, writer for Press Enterprise, records:

They sat shoulder to shoulder, Muslim women next to Mormon women, hunched over bright fabric as they learned to quilt.

As the conversations grew comfortable, the women discovered their religions, and their lives, had many common threads.

Their worship, community service, husbands and children, good schools, safe neighborhoods — and the list went on for the more than 100 who met Saturday morning at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Riverside.

Many of the Muslim women–unveiled in this setting of all women, originally came from Pakistan but have established residence in the United States.

Bina Majeed, speaking on behalf of the Muslim women, indicated there was common ground; their religion teaches them “humanity” towards all.  Aisha, of the group, also remarked on the similarities of those who otherwise have some distintly different beliefs:

“We start asking how many kids they’ve got,” Mateen said. “We laugh and we all have the same problems.”

“You’d be surprised how universal getting a teenager to clean his room is,” many of the women said with a knowing smile.

This is not a unique experience among Latter-day Saints.  Mormons join hands in worldwide service partnerships with  Catholic Relief organizations, Islamic charities, and other religious and charitable foundations.