Choice Humanitarian Expedition – Merrilee’s Story

Christopherson annually sponsors a group of employees to travel with CHOICE Humanitarian. Based out of Salt Lake City, CHOICE Humanitarian is a strategic non-governmental agency (NGO).  Working in seven countries, their goal is to end extreme poverty.  Using a village-centered approach, they work to improve quality of life through self-sufficiency. Christopherson has been involved with CHOICE for more than 20 years and is also a corporate sponsor. This small group of volunteers provides one week of service on one of Choice’s international work sites. This past year, the group assisted in the Polochic region of Guatemala, helping the villagers build in-home stoves and painted the community center. Employees who are part of the employee contribution program are eligible to go on an expedition. These employees contribute donations to CHOICE monthly, with Christopherson graciously matching the donation.  Merrilee Rease, a corporate travel agent out of Salt Lake City shared her experience from this year’s trip to Guatemala:

“Participating on the CHOICE Humanitarian Expedition was a life changing event. In fact, I highly recommend it over a regular family vacation. The villagers’ daily struggle just to prepare meals and get water from the river both amazed and saddened me. They even conserved water leading up to our arrival so that we could take quick showers while we were there. We didn’t learn about this until about two days before we were to leave. I decided not to shower after finding this out. My most memorable times were playing with the kids. They are so happy, even with what little they have. It was like Christmas for a week for them. CHOICE brought a movie screen and projector for the village to watch movies. To hear their giggles and screams during the movie made me incredibly happy. It was the little things like this that we take for granted that meant the most to me.”

See more pictures of the 2016 expedition team’s photos here.
To view pictures from previous expeditions, visit our Facebook page.

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