Peabody, MA – For the 10th year, Nelda Quigley, Director of Resident Life at Brooksby Village, will once again travel to El Salvador with a number of others including Gerry Donovan, who lives at Brooksby Village, to help those who live here.
“What a wonderful 10 years it has been,” said Quigley. “Every year new people join us and we all work well with those from El Salvador. We build strong friendships while we are there making it a wonderful experience.”
This year they will help educate teachers in El Salvador. They will also travel to a number of villages and work with a few organizations including Heifer International. Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.
Every year the group focuses on working with children at risk and whose families live and work in the dump or near the marketplace which is densely populated and a dangerous place.
“Every year we learn something new,” said Quigley. “For some this will be their first time and for some they have been before. This will be Gerry Donavan’s fourth trip El Salvador. We also have a different mission every time we go. It’s a wonderful group and I am honored to be a part of it.”
Quigley has been involved for several years in ongoing volunteer work with Dr. Vicky Guzman’s Salvadoran Association for Rural Health (ASAPROSAR), and has since gotten people who live and work at Brooksby Village interested in the organization’s work as well. She first became involved with ASAPROSAR in 1993 when her daughter traveled to El Salvador and met Dr. Guzman during a semester abroad as part of Kalamazoo College's career development program.