Stephen Danley | Billions send plea for help

The cigarette in the Rev. Paul Wilderotter's hand explained the raspy voice that had gripped an audience of Penn and Drexel University students only moments earlier. What started as a fund-raising drive Sunday evening by the pilgrimage director of an international aid group grew into a vivid display of a man's passion for serving the poor.

Wilderotter's organization, Food for the Poor, is an ecumenical non-profit that serves the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its self-described goals "are to improve the health, economic, social and spiritual conditions" of those in need.

As Wilderotter proudly announced from the podium, what makes Food for the Poor different from other non-profits is its stunning efficacy. Ninety-six percent of its donations go directly into the hands of the poor. That means a mere 4 percent of its costs go toward covering overhead. Compare that to the national legal standards, which stand at 25 percent, or the American Red Cross, which lauds its own overhead of 9 percent.

Inside the front flap of the flyer Wilderotter distributed was a breakdown of what contributors' money can accomplish:

"$21 will provide a meal for 560 children."

"$36 will feed four families for a month."

"$135 will provide a water pump for a village."

Just as it's impossible to separate the emaciated faces on the flyer from the monetary need described next to them, it's impossible to separate Wilderotter and his life from his organization. Even in speaking with him, his statistics merge into stories.

Once he was to have a meeting with a pastor from a small church in a poor African country. Upon getting to the airport, he had run up to the man, breathless and barely able to contain his excitement: Here was someone with whom he could share his passion about working amid third-world poverty.

"What do you do with the poor?" Wilderotter asked.

"Nothing," replied the pastor, "Jesus said, 'The poor you will always have with you.'"

And with that he walked away.

Wilderotter's frustration is with the world: Almost half of the world lives on less than $2 a day, nearly 40 percent of children in developing nations live on a mere $1 a day, and 10 million children die from preventable diseases every year. But beyond statistics, it's people's misunderstanding of poverty - or in this case, scripture - that truly frustrates him.

Instead of an excuse for inaction, Wilderotter saw the verse as a challenge. The poor will always be with us only if those with the resources refuse to do something about it.

The mindset of poverty itself is foreign to America. How can America understand poverty when the poverty line here is $20,000, more than 10 times Afghanistan's per capita gross domestic product? Perspective is hard to come by when America's three richest people have combined wealth greater than the GDP of 48 countries combined. It's even harder to come by on campus where 66 percent of the Class of 2010 has a family income of over $90,000, and being poor often means having to use meal swipes instead of dining out.

Wilderotter sees poverty not limited to malnutrition, or even homelessness. He sees men lose limbs to leprosy, women walk 20 miles each day to fetch clean water and children are left to die because of congenital malformations.

Yet, amid all the poverty, he does not lament a lack of resources or complain about people who did not give. Instead, he points to the poor. The key to serving them, he said, is to understand them, to get inside their minds.

As always, he coupled his point with a story. He spoke of a poor woman in Haiti who, after a prison had been emptied, had made her home in one of its abandoned cells because it was the only shelter she could find or afford.

It was in this cell that a New York Times reporter interviewed her for a story on Haitian poverty and promised to return the next day.

When he returned, he found nothing but the woman's cold body. While he had slept in a bed, years of living without a home had finally taken their toll on the woman's body. She had passed away over the course of the night. But before she died, she had mustered up the effort to leave one last message. Using a rock and scratching on the cold cell walls within which she lived, she left the following words:

"I'm tired of being poor."

Stephen Danley is a College senior from Germantown, Md. His e-mail address is danley@dailypennsylvanian.com. Late Night Conversation appears on Fridays.

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