Junior Dylan Schultz delivers a strong backhanded blow during a recent match (Madeline Fleming)

The boys’ tennis team has taken their skill to the next level in the second half of their season.

“The season is going well,” senior Simon Warchol said. “We’ve definitely improved a lot since last year.”

The team is led by senior captains Simon Warchol, Sagar Yadama, and Marshall McKinley.

“This year our senior captains have really stepped up their game and have proved to be important pieces in defeating the better teams,” freshman Mac Rechan said. “Sagar Yadama, Simon Warchol, and Marshall Mckinley provide the leadership necessary to win going forward.”

The skill and athleticism of not only seniors but also freshman on the team has helped them pull out several important wins.

“We have two very talented and highly ranked freshman, Mac Rechan and Joey Dulle  who are on the team and have immediately made an impact,” Luten said. “Our record is 8-3 with the three losses coming from three top schools who will probably be competing at State.”

Warchol is confident about Clayton’s chances in the state tournament because of the strength of each player in the top six varsity spots.

“The returning varsity members in the top six, including Jake Lee, Jack Holds, Sagar Yadama, and Dylan Schultz, combined with freshmen Mac Rechan and Joey Dulle have made our district team as formidable as any of our opponents,” Warchol said.

Additionally, the return of injured junior player Jack Holds has helped the team’s success.

“Jack Holds, after being injured almost all of last year is back at our number four spot,” Yadama said. “His strokes have improved a lot.”

Junior Jake Lee has also improved his game, becoming an essential part of the varsity team.

“Jake is our number two,” Yadama said. “He almost beat Matt Wolfe in the MICDS match which is a great accomplishment.”

Luten says the team’s dedication and frequency of off-season play is what has made the difference for such a successful team this year.

“The greatest strength of the 2011 boys Varsity Tennis Team is that we have a team of extremely talented and experienced players who play tennis all year long,” Susie Luten said. “In order to compete in the post season, you need to have these kinds of players.”

This year the team has had more success against teams that have usually been challenging in the past.

“We’ve had a couple of close losses to MICDS and Westminster, but have been able to trounce teams such as Ladue, Kirkwood, and Burroughs, who usually give us a hard time,” Warchol said.

Despite these encouraging wins, the team is not fully satisfied, and looks for a chance to redeem themselves at the state tournament.

“The season has been relatively successful,” Mac Rechan said. “We have three losses in matches we felt were winnable, so we would like to get some revenge on those teams heading into state.”

Warchol is also looking forward to the state tournament.

“The team is looking to improve at state, because we should have a chance to make up for our closest matches against MICDS and Westminster there,” Warchol said.

The team’s biggest success is a point of contention among the players, with so many important wins.

“Our greatest success as a team was defeating Kirkwood 5-2 in which was also my biggest win against Drew Morris,” Rechan said.

The team’s chemistry and support of one another is a big advantage. However the team is still looking to gel even more as the competition stiffens late in the season.

“Our team is looking to improve our overall togetherness heading into state which will be vital to our success in the district and state tournament,” Rechan said.

Yadama also points out that matches depend on both singles and doubles results, and therefore an exclusive focus on singles play must be avoided.

“Although singles is the highlight of most matches, we are looking not to shortchange doubles as the outcome of doubles matches will determine the winner of the overall match,” Yadama said.

Yadama recalled Rechan’s match against Morris as his favorite memory of the season.

“My favorite memory of the season was when Mac Rechan destroyed Kirkwood’s number 1 player Drew Morris,” Yadama said.

Luten was also very proud of the win against Kirkwood.

“Our best win was against Kirkwood because we haven’t beaten them in many, many years,” Luten said.

Yadama cites the Ladue match as the most important of the season.

“The greatest success so far was beating Ladue,” Yadama said. “Since they are our rivals it was nice to squash them in the match, and since they are of the best in our district we know we can make it to state.”

According to Warchol, the most significant match was Burroughs.

“My favorite memory of the season was beating Burroughs 9-2, because they beat us in district finals last year,” Warchol said.

Luten agrees with Warchol’s opinion, because Burroughs is an important team to beat heading into the state tournament. However, as always, each player has had challenging matchups against athletes from other schools throughout the season.

“My most challenging match was the one in which I lost to Charlie Curtis of MICDS, who is also a good friend of mine,” Rechan said. “He’s a tough player to play against for me, but hopefully I’ll get another shot at state.”

The team is undefeated in their district, a record that Warchol chalks up to the depth of the varsity squad.
“Our undefeated district record is definitely a plus,” Warchol said. “But the overall team depth is our greatest strength, and will definitely serve us as districts approach.”

The younger players are enthusiastic and optimistic for future years, despite the loss of such strong senior players.

“My hopes for next season and beyond is to win at least one individual state title and help my team to a team state title,” Rechan said.

“This summer is going to be mostly focused on getting the addition steel up, getting the brick on under roof so we can start working on the interior finishes this fall and winter,” said Mark Winschel, the Project Manager from S.M. Wilson & Co.

Winschel estimates that work at the high school is about 15 percent complete, while work at the elementary schools, which is scheduled to be finished by this fall, is about 40 percent complete. The bulk of the work will happen over the summer, once the steel starts to go up later this month. While there are only 15 to 25 workers on site at the high school currently, that number will begin to increase dramatically in the coming months.

“Once the steel is up, that opens up a lot of work,” Winschel said. “You can start working on the inside, you can start working on the outside. I’d say our peak at the high school is probably going to be later on this fall. We’ll probably have close to a hundred guys here.”

Winschel said that the project has gone smoothly for the most part, despite a problem early on involving the locating of utility lines under the cottage and tech. building.

“A lot of times the utility information that we have on the plans doesn’t match exactly what’s shown in the field, so sometimes we’ll hit water lines or hit sanitary lines that are in the way,” Winschel said. “You have to work and get those repaired, and that delays your schedule a little bit because you’ve got to get all that stuff out of the way before you can do your foundations and steel.”

There have been some complaints from staff, which Winschel said is normal for a demolition project.

The sounds of jack-hammering and heavy machinery can be heard through the walls of the math wing, which has been a source of disruption for many teachers.

“It’s tough because if it’s loud and it’s disruptive, it’s not fair to kids to have class in there,” said Math Department Chair David Kohmetscher. “But the difficulty is that we don’t have space, that’s one of the reasons we’re building an addition; we don’t have enough rooms to send people to…. We’ve got one of our overflow rooms as an art bay, so you take your math class from here down to the ceramics room – not the most efficient place to learn.”

Winschel said that the noise level should be lessening soon as the demolition phase ends and crews start focusing on constructing the addition.

“We’re going to get to the stage where we get the shell enclosed, masons are working – that’s not a particularly loud activity – and then once the building’s enclosed we’re going to be working inside, so there’s going to be a pretty good buffer from the addition to the existing building,” Winschel said. “So I would say the disruption is probably going to go down in the near future.”

Because the math wing already has Smart Boards in every room, a central office and other perks from the most recent construction project, it will not be gaining any new facilities from the addition. In fact, the largest math classroom will lose about a third of its floor space to accommodate a hallway.

“We’re not getting anything from this one, but we’ve been pretty lucky we got this area in the last construction,” Kohmetscher said.

Health and P.E. teachers have also been affected by the construction, though not that of the new addition.  Renovations to the Stuber facilities have forced the health teachers to move out of their office, and the same fate will soon come to Coach Samuel Horrell, who is scheduled to move to one of the learning annexes later this month.  However, he said that the minor hassle of moving offices is outweighed by the positive changes that the construction will bring.

“I think the new facilities that we’re going to be getting are going to be phenomenal for our classes and for our athletics,” Horrell said. “So it’s worth that little price of inconvenience that you have to pay.”

The changes in store for Stuber will bring new rooms and capabilities that will greatly aid the athletics program.

“They’re redoing the locker rooms upstairs, they’re redoing them downstairs, and then on the girls’ side they’re actually putting an athletic training facility… where people can come in from outside and do rehab,” Horrell said. “Our athletes are going to have access to all the rehab and all the high tech. equipment that’s going to be in there.”

Construction crews will continue to hammer and bang as they build and renovate, which will likely bring more disruptions to staff and students.  Yet the end result, new buildings and facilities that will revitalize and modernize numerous classes, will surely be worth the price.  As Horrell said, “You’ve got to give a little to get a little,” and in this case, CHS is getting quite a lot.

That’s the question that the new “Panera Cares” café seeks to explore. A formerly run-of-the-mills Panera, it is now the first pilot restaurant in the franchise to try a novel idea: pay what you want.

But it’s not just offering negotiable—or even negligible, if you prefer—prices. It is completely nonprofit, and any extra money left over from expenses is given, as one employee told me, “back to the community”.

Of course, this spawns a natural number of other questions, the most important one being: how can one be sure that the offer won’t be completely taken advantage of?

When I first heard about the unique establishment, I was completely taken aback and a tad wary of its existence at all. Just a couple of weeks ago, I’d visited that same Panera. The whole operation, truthfully, seems like a suicidal one. Visions of snickering students getting sandwiches and then paying with a lucky penny found on the floor persisted.

The plan could never work—simply because there are, at the moment, too many obnoxious people out there ready to milk the system. Right?

Nevertheless, I decided to visit the place, scope out how it was doing in the first couple days of its rebirth as a charity foundation. Even as I pulled up outside, I could see the crowd inside. It seemed to confirm my worst fears.

Warily, I opened the door, and was greeted by a large banner over the bakery counter: “Take what you need, pay your fair share.” To the side were bagged breads—presumably leftovers from the day before—on a table. Directly in front of me, I found two cheery employees waiting. They were there to explain the system, they said. Lots of people—especially those had already been coming daily for lunch, I imagine—were naturally confused as to how they were supposed to even begin.

I was limited to one entrée, they told me, unless I was willing to donate the extra cost. Was I?

I nodded.

They smiled. It seemed that most customers were in fact paying—or, as they called it, donating—anyway, as they hoped they would. The objective, they explained, was not simply free meals, but to have those who could pay make up for those who couldn’t. In other words, they were relying completely on the goodwill of others.

At the register, my order was rung up, not with a price, but a sort of accepted value. Feeling charitable, I dropped extra into the donations box, which was already starting to look quite well-fed.

Where were those awful, awful people walking out with bagels, cookies and sandwiches all gotten shamelessly for free? Where were they? While I sat there during the peak lunch hour, I seldom saw anyone who didn’t drop their payment into the donation box anyway. I have even overheard people vowing to lend their business to the place even more than they might have before.

It was then that I realized how much of a cynic I had been. In the café, surrounded by benevolence, there was a tangible sense of community, something that I’ve never experienced before. Patrons genuinely wanted to give more, enjoyed the fact that their meal’s cost was going to a better cause. As did I. I’ll be back again soon. The experience was truly rewarding.

I promise that it will be just as rewarding for you as well. Sure, you could give your business to the Starbucks across the street. But, really, where’s the pleasure in that? Order your favorite food from Panera—it’s still there, all of it, despite the changes in structure. And chew over your good deed of the day as well.

How far can human goodness go? As of what I’ve seen, pretty far.

Senior Madeline Docherty attends a discussion with visiting Moscow School delegates. The group of delegates visited CHS on April 28. (Caroline Stamp)

On April 28, CHS faculty, staff, and students were given the privilege of meeting with delegates from the Moscow School of Political Studies, which facilitates seminars about various social and political issues for professionals from Russia and around the world.
The delegation, which included heads of departments from various Russian universities, visited CHS and other sites in the St. Louis area to understand differences in local governance, education, and other cultural and political aspects of cities in America compared to those in Russia.
During the seminar at CHS, the delegates were interested in the range of the class size, the subjects that students study, and the prestige associated with teaching in the United States. In return, they answered students’ questions about similar issues related to education.
In Russia, many schools have grades from first to eleventh, and the class size is usually between twenty and thirty students. A typical school week in Russia is six days, and some schools have two shifts during which students can attend classes.
Most secondary schools, which include eleventh and twelfth grade, have a single special focus, which is often math, physics or biology, and has a strong influence on students’ future educational or career plans.
According to the delegates, students don’t have much flexibility when choosing classes, and they don’t have the same classes every day.
Unlike the American college application process, the Russian college application process is based on the requirement that students decide to pursue a set field in advance. One of the translators said, “A university [in Russia] doesn’t have a variety of things; it’s a university of ‘something’.”
While there is no Russian equivalent of the standardized testing such as the SAT or the ACT, Russia recently started a system in which students have to pass a state exam in the required areas of Russian language and math in order to graduate from secondary school. Students may take an additional five subject tests in other subjects.
The subject exams which students choose to take depend on the focus of the college that students wish to attend. The result of this nationwide exam gives students the privilege to apply to a university. Russian students may be entitled to scholarships if they receive high scores on the exam, just as American students are.
Toward the middle of the discussion, the topic turned to politics. The delegates said that while United Russia is the ruling political party, three other major parties are the Liberal Democrats, the Social Party, and the Communist Party, which still has a number of adherents.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the delegates have noticed a trend of young people planning their futures in economics and law because of significantly reduced government control in those areas.
The delegates shared similar perceptions of America.  Some of the most frequently mentioned terms included “competition,” “high level of economic development,” “a very powerful military,” and “mother of the global economic crisis.”
The images the delegates held of American politicians are highly dependent on propaganda. During the 2008 election, most Russians received a stronger message from Obama.
Though the time allotted for the visit only allowed us to discuss two main topics, the visit by members of the Moscow School of Political Studies was a unique and informative opportunity to bring interesting information to both the delegates and the CHS students and staff.

“We have been through a lot of trials, but I hope that they will make us much stronger next year and that we can pick up where we left off this season,” junior wide midfielder Helen Wiley said.

This season has been full of triumphs and tough, hard-fought losses.

“I think that we have had ups and downs,” junior midfielder Alison Bayly said. “There have been exciting goals and frustrating losses. All of the games have been really close this year.”

The team’s best moments have come when they work cohesively and put forth admirable effort during games.

“My favorite memory from the season so far was the Rosati-Kain game because we played with so much energy and everyone was clearly having a lot of fun,” Bayly said.

Wiley agrees that, even with such a demanding season and an exhausting sport, soccer can be intense and fun at the same time.

“I think my favorite memories of soccer are always when we manage to have fun while playing the game,” Wiley said.

The team has been led by junior captain Alison Bayly and senior captain Sonja Petermann.  The two have proved extremely valuable to this young, growing team. In fact, Petermann is the only senior on the team this year.

“This team is much younger than teams in the past have been,” Bayly said.

Last year’s graduating class left the team with many important spots to fill.

“In fact, half of the girls were seniors,” Wiley said. “This year we have a very young team that is generally quiet but has a lot of developing talent.”

This team has carried over some aspects from last year’s team, which played in the district championship game, but has also developed a unique identity.

“I think that a lot of the culture of last year’s team has tied over to this year but we still have a very different group of girls,” Wiley said. “Last year’s team was very vocal with many dominating personalities.”

The girls remain confident and driven, even as the season’s final games approach.

“I think that the team has developed quite a bit over the course of the season, but that our real success will come when we outwork a team for an entire game,” Wiley said.

The team also continues to set goals, which they hope to achieve by the end of this season.

“I think the team needs to work on communication and keeping up the intensity level in games,” Wiley said.

One strength of this year’s girls’ soccer team is the versatility and talent of its athletes.

“Although we are a young team, we have a lot of depth in a lot of positions,” Bayly said.

The team has relied on several strong talents to carry them through this season, including forwards Meg Sutter and Karley Woods, midfielder Alison Bayly, defenders Allison O’Neal and Katie Marvel, and goalie Bree Northern, among other skilled athletes.

“I think that there are a lot of great natural athletes on the team,” Bayly said.

Fortunately, many of these players are juniors and sophomores, and will continue to play next year.

“With the exception of Sonja’s leaving and a few new additions next year, the team will be comprised of a very similar group of people,” Wiley said. “This has been a growing year for our team.”

Bayly also cites the youth of the team as a potential asset, rather than a drawback.

“We are only losing one player, so hopefully our team will be able to grow even more as a unit,” Bayly said. “It will only be to our advantage that we are keeping a similar team, because we are really improving together.”

Several sophomores on the team have been particularly helpful, and have stepped up into significant roles as the season has progressed.  One example is sophomore Karley Woods, who stands out as a dominant force on the soccer field.  Her ability to maneuver the ball and her inexhaustible energy have brought intensity and talent to the team.

“Everyone has their individual strengths on the team but Karley Woods is one of the strongest players on the team,” Wiley said.

With this wide base of talent, the team is beginning to anticipate the end of the season, particularly district play.

“Most of the teams that we have played so far this year and that we will see again in districts are at a similar level,” Bayly said.

However, the team is still focused on the present, and will continue to take a measured approach as the end of the season draws near.

“Right now we are concentrating on making it through the regular season by being successful in our final games,” Wiley said. “We are really taking things one step at a time.”

“When doctors saw her X-ray, they could not believe she wasn’t paralyzed,” Mary Gaertner said. “Her pulmonary functions were limited and all her organs were sort of squished together.”

Gaertner, a nurse, goes on a medical mission along with other volunteers to Honduras every year though an organization called ProPapa. It was during one such mission that the volunteers found Yorlene.

Yorlene (second from left) with some of her cousins, in front of their hut in Honduras. Yorlene lived with her grandmother, whom she called "Mama", and cousins. A ProPapa builder's team was helping to build a new home for the family when Yorlene's condition was first recognized.

“Yorlene’s family lives in a village that is near the home of ProPapa’s directors,” Michelle Price, who was the first of the mission group to meet Yorlene, said. “I am not sure who found out about her situation, but ProPapa agreed to build her family a home. My family had been involved in caring for another child with spinal deformities so when I saw Yorlene’s physical condition, I thought maybe we could help her, too.”

Yorlene’s problem was twofold: scoliosis causes lateral, or side-to-side, curvature of the spine, and kyphosis causes hunchbacks. Afflicted with severe cases of both, Yorlene’s case would soon be made more astonishing when doctors found out that she was not only walking, but running around her village, behaving just like any normal child.

Price, who had gone to Honduras early to help with a youth construction group, called her mother, Marilyn Price—who coordinates mission trips with Gaertner—back in the U.S., asking her to make some calls about getting Yorlene help.

“There’s a physician in New York who’s affiliated with our organization,” Gaertner said. “He’s an orthopedic surgeon. When he went down [to Honduras] later that year, he evaluated Yorlene. It was then, that the process of getting her a visa to come to the states for treatment was begun.”

But once Yorlene finally landed in New York under the care of host mother Lila Benitez, test results showed that her case was much more difficult than originally thought. After a year in New York, she was transferred to St. Louis, placed under the care of Dr. Lawrence Lenke.

“[Lenke] is a world-renowned spine surgeon,” Gaertner said. “And we have him right here. He took her on at no charge, and the Children’s Hospital pretty much ate the cost.”

It was in St. Louis Children’s Hospital hat Yorlene’s case commenced. She spent six weeks in halo traction, and then went in for a 10-hour surgery. Afterwards, she would spend a few more weeks in Shriners Hospital for physical therapy as well.

Yorlene in her 'halo traction'. For six weeks, doctors prepared her spine for drastic surgery by fitting her in a 'halo' head brace that, as shown, stretched her spine upright. Yorlene reportedly grew a few inches just from the traction.

“They literally drilled holes in her head,” Gaertner said. “Then they put this ‘halo’ on her head, and she was in traction, stretching out her spine, so when they went in to do surgery, it wouldn’t be a major shock to pull her out of a position she’s been in her whole life.”

The shock wouldn’t end in a physical sense. In her two years spent in the U.S., Yorlene would have to become used to not only a new life away from home, but also an entire way of living that was very different than what she knew in Honduras.

Adjusting from one world to another

Food, clothing, education and shelter, though easily found in the U.S., are not so near at hand in Yorlene’s native Honduras. Suddenly whisked from her small village outside Uracco, she found herself in an environment the likes of which she had never seen before.

“[Yorlene’s] whole story is very sad,” Gaertner said. “Her mother abandoned her. Poverty is very pervasive in Honduras, and in remote villages, and even in the cities, many lack electricity, and they live day-by-day.”

Yorlene was living in a simple stick home with her grandmother and nine cousins at the time when she met Michelle Price, who was part of the St. Louis team helping to build the Reyes family a bigger and safer abode. The children quickly befriended the builders.

However, it soon became clear, especially during preparation to get her medical help, that Yorlene had no concept of time, with no understanding of weeks, days, or hours, or even age.

“She only knew here and now,” Marilyn Price said. “Yorlene thought she would come to New York, have her surgery the next day and return to Honduras right after that.”

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Yorlene is 14 years old, but Gaertner estimates that she’s closer to 10 years old than anything else. Her exact age is still uncertain.

Yorlene had also had little in the way of formal education. She attended middle school while living in New York, though she had had only had perhaps a year of school beforehand.

“Yorlene only had a second grade education,” Marilyn Price said. “And it was very inconsistent. [In Honduras] she only went to school when she felt like it.”

Her condition in itself, Gaertner speculates, is due to the scarcity of available medical care, and that Yorlene’s condition worsened to the point that it was because, unlike children in the U.S., Yorlene’s town in Honduras had no means for any kind of regular checkups for children. The annual medical missions that Gaertner attends in Honduras are attempts to mitigate this, at least for one small town a year.

Many people have some form of mild scoliosis, Gaertner said, but Yorlene didn’t have a doctor who could catch it early on.

What most impacted Yorlene emotionally, however, was the food situation.

“She would call home every week,” Gaertner said. “Her grandmother would say things like ‘I haven’t had a grain of rice to eat all week’.”

In the U.S., Yorlene found herself in a culture where getting food was as easy as walking to a supermarket. At only 40 pounds when she initially entered the U.S., Yorlene was malnourished, but gained 27 pounds during her stay.

However, homesickness, plus the knowledge that she had plenty to eat in the U.S. while her family suffered back home, took its toll on Yorlene.

“She was very angry and very lonely,” Marilyn Price said. “She did not want to eat. She felt guilty knowing her family in Honduras had little or nothing to eat. She wanted Lila to wrap up her food and send it to Honduras.”

Yorlene enjoys a day in the U.S. Many of the things that Americans experience every day, such as enough food to eat, clothes, even skyscrapers were a novel thing for a girl who had lived in a stick hut back in her home village of Uracco, Honduras.

Though she loved her sponsor family, Yorlene’s wish was to go back to Honduras when she was done. According to the ProPapa website, Yorlene would often say, “Tell them to operate on me quickly.”

Lila Benitez found it hard in the beginning to help a girl who really only wanted to go home.

“She was incredibly sad and frightened,” Lila Benitez said. “She was a stranger in a strange land.”

The alienation didn’t last, however. Lila enrolled Yorlene in middle school, who found that she enjoyed riding the bus and making friends.

“The community Yorlene lived in totally embraced her,” Marilyn Price said. “She was learning English. She had friends in the neighborhood. Yorlene and her sponsor mom, Lila, were becoming very close. Although Lila’s children are grown, they treat her like their little sister, even coming to St. Louis when she had her surgery.”

Michelle Price agrees.

“I know at first Yorlene missed her family very much,” Michelle Price said. “She was homesick. However, many people here ‘adopted her’ and made her part of their families.”

Tanya Benitez, who initially alerted her mother Lila about Yorlene’s situation, agrees.

‘‘I remember the first time I took Yorlene into New York City and she had never seen a building in her life,” Tanya Benitez said. “We got out the train station and she was just in awe of the amount of people there. I then told her to look up at one of the skyscrapers and she almost fell over in shock, her eyes and mouth wide- just the expression on her face was worthwhile.”

The road to America

ProPapa Missions, America was established 15 years ago.

Beneath it runs the “Children to America” program, which takes care of one child at a time, making for a total of 15 children like Yorlene that it has helped. However, because the physician that works with ProPapa is stationed in New York, that is where the majority of those children were treated.

Gaertner and the Prices had taken care of another girl, called Maria Elena, two years prior to discovering Yorlene. Because the girl had also had spine deformities—though, Gaertner said, not as bad as Yorlene’s—Michelle Price recognized the condition.

The process of getting a child help is a difficult one, however, and not for the faint of heart. A specific process usually takes place, according to Marilyn Price, and can take up to a year to complete.

It begins with a help request.

Sister Laurinda Mayer, a St. Louis native who joined ProPapa in Honduras after she felt the need to work in a third world country, coordinates the mission trips from the receiving end. It is she who is approached by a parent seeking help for their child.

When the medical mission team arrives in the village, Sr. Laurinda typically directs them to the child. The process of bringing the child to the U.S. begins if child cannot be treated in Honduras and is afflicted with a life-threatening situation.

Such were the conditions that brought both Yorlene and Maria Elena, among others, to the States. Lab work, pictures, and x-rays are done in Honduras while the process of seeking a doctor and hospital that will treat the child—with no charge—commences.

“Usually a physician agrees on a ‘first time visit only’,” Marilyn Price said. “That means they want to see the child first to make sure the child can actually be treated. Once the hospital and physician agree on that, the next step begins.”

After a hospital is found, the legalities are then addressed. Sr. Laurinda accompanies the parent and their afflicted child to the Embassy in Honduras in order to obtain a Medical Visa.

Once the Embassy signals its approval (decisions take about one month), the child gets a passport as well.

The final stage is to find the child a U.S. sponsor to take care of them during their stay.

“The sponsor parent will house the child and take care of the child as if he or she were their own,” Marilyn Price said. “They take them to all the hospital visits and see that they have everything they need. This is a huge commitment, since as in the case of Yorlene Reyes, the child might be there for over a year.”

In Lila Benitez’s case, becoming a host mother turned out to be much more than she bargained for—but in a good way. A retired nurse and fluent in Spanish, she became aware of Yorlene’s situation when her daughter Tanya Benitez, a social worker, received an email seeking potential sponsor parents.

She decided to take on the challenge.

“Yorlene has thrived under her care,” Gaertner said.

For the duration of time that Yorlene stays in the U.S., Lila Benitez has legal guardianship over her.

“As you can see, it is a difficult process that involves a lot of truly dedicated people,” Marilyn Price said. “The end result is wonderful and so rewarding. A child, who otherwise might not have lived, is given a chance at a normal, healthy life.”

The home stretch

The tail end of Yorlene’s ordeal is almost ended; she has had a few weeks of rehabilitation at Shriners Hospital—which, according to Gaertner, does a large amount of spinal surgery—undergoing physical therapy, learning to use muscles she hadn’t had to before, and regaining her altered sense of balance.

During traction alone, Gaertner estimates that Yorlene grew a couple inches—but after the surgery, her newly straightened spine made her quite a bit taller, enough to cause her to need new clothes, a bundle of which she recently sent up to New York, where Yorlene is currently living.

Though the whole ordeal was “exhausting”, Gaertner said, Yorlene’s rehabilitation “wasn’t as bad as you might think.”

The one question that stands now is the future—and how, or where, exactly, to let Yorlene go. She will spend more time in the U.S., perhaps until July, for a follow-up visit to Lenke. After that, little, if anything, is known. During Yorlene’s stay in the States, Yorlene’s grandmother died, prompting questions about her custody and future.

“We don’t even know what’s going to happen to her,” Gaertner said. “Lila wants to adopt her…we won’t abandon her, but we have to function within the legalities. She wants to go back to Honduras, but I don’t know how she’ll feel when she gets there.”

Yorlene has three main options when she’s cleared by Lenke to return home. The least desirable option, according to Gaertner, is for her to move in with her 18 year old cousin who has three children, and who lives a 30 minutes’ walk from Yorlene’s old house.

Secondly, she could stay in the U.S. with Lila as her foster parent, or thirdly, live in El Progresso, Honduras, with a friend of ProPapa Missions’ founders.

“Lila is wonderful but Yolene wants to return to Honduras so in my opinion, this [third choice] is the best option,” Gaertner said. “She could catch up with her many missed years of education and attend a prestigious bilingual school there. If this happens, Marilyn and I are already planning to pay the tuition which makes this a very viable option.”

Both Michelle Price and Gaertner, however, are unsure as to how Yorlene will go back to her old life of poverty now that she’s had a taste of American life.

“After adjusting to cultural changes, the easiest part was probably enjoying the American way of life—toys, movies, clothes,” Michelle Price said. “A lot of times, it is hard for kids to go back to their former lives.”

After just a couple of years, Yorlene will face the change between New York to Uracco once again… but this time, the other way around. However, wherever she goes, she will always carry with her a little of her life-changing stay, however short it may have been, in the U.S.

What is ProPapa?

For the past six years, Marilyn Price and Gaertner have jointly coordinated their yearly medical missions together, but it was Michelle Price who originally voiced the idea of mission work.

“I had wanted to do mission work in high school,” Michelle Price said. “It didn’t take much to get my mom to agree. I basically just brought it up a couple of times and she was on board.”

Her source of motivation, she said, was the inequality she saw regarding the basic needs in the U.S., as opposed to those of the people living in Honduras.

“We have so much in the U.S.,” Michelle Price said. “The poor here are rich compared to the poor in Honduras and other developing countries. There is no welfare, Medicaid, food pantry… no safety net at all. I wanted to give these people something, however small, to ease their lives. I wanted to help people who had no other option.”

Such missions now being annual, they begin planning their next mission six months in advance.

A Honduran villager drives a load of crop down the mountain. Last year's mission spent one week in the remote mountain village of La Peña.

“There are many aspects of the trip that need to be considered,” Marilyn Price said. “I think the objectives of the mission trips Mary and I have coordinated over the last six years have been to reach those suffering from severe poverty to help alleviate their suffering. We look at each trip in terms of accomplishments and struggles and improve our efforts where needed. We try to enhance those that have succeeded well.”

Though it has been difficult for her to go on the trips themselves since she graduated from college and began working, Michelle Price tries to stay involved any way she can.

“A lot of prep work goes into the trip,” Michelle Price said. “I help with making medication labels, fundraising and other tasks. Volunteers are needed both in the US and in Honduras.”

It is not uncommon to see young volunteers on medical teams as well—CHS students, as well as other high school students, have gone on the trips in the past and continue to do so.

Aaron Praiss, a 2009 CHS alum, went on the St. Louis medical mission last year.
“I went to get more of a firsthand experience with medicine and patient care.” Praiss said. “It’s a completely different experience than an hospital in the States, it’s less organized. Besides that, it was also an excuse to go to a foreign country, which I love, and to speak Spanish.”

The group that Praiss went with split its two-week stay in Honduras between two different villages. Praiss volunteered for registration for the first half, and assisted a pediatrician for the second.

“The second village, La Peña, was a mountain village,” Praiss said. “It was extremely remote; so remote that we had to take pickup trucks to get there and then hitchhike with village people up the mountain.”

Most of the patients had never been to a doctor before. Praiss saw conditions of varying degree, from infections to hydrocyphalus, a condition in which a baby’s head is formed too large due to the lack of folic acid while in the womb.

“You heard crazy stories about people walking 45 minutes to see the doctors,” Praiss said. “There was the case of one patient who told the nurses that the rest of his family couldn’t make it—one son was completely blind, another had issues with mobility. We made a house call instead.”

The blind son turned out to have cataracts, and was referred to a hospital to get them removed. Before the patients left the ProPapa clinics, they were given medicines, supplements, and basic hygenic supplies. The volunteers took great pains to stress proper use of all the supplies.

“I don’t know how much stuck,” Praiss said, “but it was a good step in the right direction.”

Gaertner’s daughter, sophomore Zoe Keller is going on the mission this year.

“I love helping people in need and making a difference in the world,” Keller said. “I have been involved with ProPapa since the sixth grade when my mom went to Honduras for the first time. She has been going every year since and I am finally old enough to go with her. My mom always comes home with so many incredible stories about Honduras so I think it will be a great experience.”

Keller will be doing mostly registration work.

“I get to take down the personal information, blood pressures and weigh patients before they see the doctor, nurse or dentist,” Keller said. “At the end of the day, I will be responsible for tallying up all the medical forms and counting how many adults vs. children were seen that day and how many patients went to the dentist. I was told that I have to be flexible because my assignment could change depending on if I’m needed somewhere else.”

ProPapa doesn’t just stop at medical aid, however. In addition, it also lends construction and dental assistance as well, and sends “brigades” of each specialty to Honduras throughout the year.

A group of Hondurans waits for assistance outside a ProPapa nursing station. Most villagers had never been to a doctor before.

For instance, construction teams build cinder block houses in Honduras for families who need them, as well as water purification systems and nutrition centers.

“At the present time, ProPapa is building a bridge to replace a rope-style bridge,” Marilyn Price said. “The preexisting rope bridge was in such disrepair, that many lives were lost attempting to cross it. Many of those who died were children trying to get to school.”

ProPapa itself began in Honduras about 30 years ago, founded by Benigno Ramirez, a street child who pulled himself from poverty.

The mission statement of ProPapa is “To work with the people in Honduras to relieve their suffering through health, housing and education”.

Children like Yorlene in need of medical care are not the only ones receiving sponsorship. For its 15th anniversary, ProPapa built a clinic which is kept open 24 hours a day. There, mothers and their babies can be supported, and are able obtain prenatal and infant care. Furthermore, ProPapa also has a scholarship program. For $50 per year, a child can be sponsored to attend school.

“Both organizations [ProPapa Missions and ProPapa Missions, America] work together for the good of the people,” Marilyn Price said.

This year’s upcoming medical mission trip is June 8-June 17th. As for Yorlene, wherever she lands, her life will have been changed forever by a group of determined supporters.

“I recently got a thank-you note from her,” Gaertner said. “It was just so dear… The fact that we can change one person’s life so dramatically, I just feel like any good anybody can do is worth it.”