South Range senior spends week after spring break volunteering in Haiti

March 30, 2016 at 12:08a.m.

Canfield

Most high-school seniors are spending their spring break traveling or relaxing from a long school year, but South Range High School senior Holly Toy will spend it preparing for her trip next week to Haiti – not for a vacation, but to help people in need.

The Caribbean nation still has tens of thousands without homes from the 2010 earthquake, according to Amnesty International, and there’s still a need for much more aid. Toy will help build a home for the family of the child her family sponsors as well as interact with the local community with her grandfather, Roy Houser; her two friends, Brant Rothbauer and Kelly Shannon; and Kelly’s mother, Jennifer Shannon.

Toy first visited the Haitian city of Grand-Goave in 2014 on a trip organized by the youth group of Greenford Christian Church with the “Homes for Haiti” program organized through Lifeline Christian Mission. When Toy came back, she said she felt so compelled to do more and later sponsored a Haitian boy she briefly met, Fritz Louis, who was no older than her 7-year-old brother. They pay $30 a month, which helps pay for some of Fritz’s food and schooling.

While on the trip, Toy learned many things about the country, its people and most importantly herself, finding it both mentally and spiritually challenging.

“It was hard for me coming home, because I was questioning God a lot, and why would these people be so poor and then people in America be so gifted; I just didn’t understand that,” she said.

Toy said she can now answer some of the questions she had because of her strengthened relationship with God.

In her first visit, Toy funded her $2,000 trip from donations through Lifeline and Greenford Church. This time, she wanted to fund this trip herself and spent her entire savings through her summer job, and with the help of her family and the community donating money to make up the difference.

Just recently, Toy also won the state championship in the speech and debate competition in Cincinnati and will also compete in the National Speech and Debate Association Championship tournament at Salt Lake City in June.

Toy said she hopes to attend Ohio University and participate on its debate and speech team, but also said she still isn’t sure about what she wants to do in college or in her career, so long as she can help and work with people. But Dan Pappalardo, South Range High School Spanish teacher and Toy’s speech and debate coach, said she has a bright future wherever that may be.

“Whatever she does decide to do, she’s going to take herself into that with a passion, sincerity and endless energy,” Pappalardo said.