'Global Volunteers' Pay to Be Good Samaritans

She vividly remembers a conversation she had with an African-American store owner in the small Southern town. "In that town, everyone knows everyone else. So when she saw me come into the store, she asked me if I was one of those 'Globals.' She said her town appreciates what we as a group were doing, and it felt good to see one of her own come all the way down to Jonestown to help clean up her town."

Williams's team cleaned up empty lots, laced the Main Street with Christmas lights ("they had never had them up before"), and fixed up the town hall's bathroom facilities. Since that trip, she has gone to two other Mississippi towns, Texas, and the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. "Jamaica was just breathtaking," she says.

Philbrook warns that these non-touristy trips are not for everyone. Even though people's hearts may be in the right place, some are ill-prepared for the "culture shock," he says. Hayward adds that "it takes a certain type of temperament to go on these trips, because you have to be willing to be flexible in your expectations; you have to realize that anything can happen." The cockroaches Mr. Alberts saw in the Texas home he slept in "were just an everyday part of a migrant workers' life."

Alberts, a former business executive from Florida, has found a new career with the private, nonsectarian group. He has worked and lived with migrant workers in San Juan, Texas, picked collard greens in Arcola, Miss., and sung to schoolchildren in Indonesia. "To help teach the children English, I would sing songs to them like 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm,' and their eyes would just light up. From then on they called me 'Old MacDonald,'" says Alberts, who adds that "now that I am retired, I find that when I help others, I am also helping myself."

Not-so-obnoxious Americans

Whether volunteers spend one week in Mississippi or three weeks in Vietnam, Philbrook says, they return with a sense that all people are basically the same. "Although you might read about the South or Southeast Asia," Alberts adds, "it is not until you live with these people that you know what is really going on."

Philbrook has a worldwide staff of 25 in 13 countries, and says he wants to remain on a first-name basis with his employees. He also does not want to forget why he began Global Volunteers. "The story we tell about ourselves, about who we really are, is just so inaccurate," Philbrook says. "The rest of the world doesn't ever get to see genuine Americans except through programs like this."

Terzi, a wiry, ponytailed man with a salt-and-pepper moustache, adds that people on his trip told him: " 'You know, for Americans, you really are not obnoxious.' I don't know why we have such a bad image," he adds with a laugh.

Philbrook plans to have 110 trips to exotic locales next year. These volunteers are not going to Jamaica, Indonesia, or Tanzania to shape cultures, he says, but only to improve the people's quality of life. "We're not imposing American technology or religion when we go to these places," he stresses. "We're there simply to help and to serve without any ulterior motives."

* Global Volunteers: 800 487-1074.

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