My Nonprofit Reviews

HELPS is a great organization. The impact HELPS makes on the lives of the indigenous populations (e.g., Mayan) in the highlands of Guatemala is immense and immediate. I’ve gone on 5 “stoving” trips with HELPS to install a wood-burning stove into a “house” that has been using a three-stone fire in the middle of the room to cook. The house reeks of wood smoke, the walls are covered in soot. The population there suffers from respiratory illnesses; there are children with severe burns on their hands and arms because they fell into the fire. So, we traipse up into the mountains, we unpack our tools and we get to work. It’s hot, dirty, sweaty work; tools help but it’s mostly “grunt work”. Yet, 45 minutes later we’re done, having built the stove from the piece-parts, having installed a gravity-fed water filter, and having taught the family how to use and care for their new “technology”. (They have no electricity, no natural gas, no running water; they use outhouses, not bathrooms.) To them stoves are wonderful new devices. We say a prayer of thanks and we start the hike to the next house. We family we leave behind no longer must spend 40% of income buying firewood (or 2 days a week foraging for wood in the forest while the children are home, alone) and no longer must drink filthy water. We leave behind children who now have a chance at a good life, a mother who can cook while standing up and without sucking in smoke, and a grandmother crying with joy because she never thought it was possible that her family could escape the brutal life that she’s been living for decades.

HELPS makes a huge improvement in people’s lives, immediately, by providing the tools, infrastructure, and opportunity for its volunteers to change the course of an entire family in under an hour.

Those trips forever changed my life. I can’t wait to go back.