UUFSMA: “Volunteerism in Rural Education”

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Sunday Service

“Volunteerism in Rural Education”
Speaker: Bill Wilkinson

Sunday, May 22, 2022
10:30 am

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/414604040 

Password: 294513

By Joseph Plummer

UUFSMA Board Secretary

For the last eight years, as an advocate for students and teachers in rural schoolhouses, UUFSMA member Bill Wilkinson has devoted much of his energy to building resources for education in villages outside San Miguel de Allende. During this Sunday Service, he will describe his work as an independent, self-directed volunteer in a largely neglected domain of Mexican society.

Retired as a major international shipping executive, Wilkinson discovered this avocation after traveling throughout Mexico for about ten years in a motorhome with his wife Jane and their two dogs and finally making a home in San Miguel. Here while working with Jovenes Adelante, he met a nursing student, Ceci, from a very poor family living in a remote hamlet.

Wheeling his way into this work, Bill loves driving to campo schools and seeking receptive principals and teachers who invite him to assist with tutoring programs and resources.  “I’m naturally shy,” he says, “but I feel empowered when I am speaking for resources for these children.”  And he is also persuasive. He has convinced several people to provide time and money to his adopted schools.

Opportunities to help others drive his passion to work beyond his immediate surroundings and accept others for their self-worth.  Rural Mexican culture amazes him for its work ethic, compassion, and welcoming attitude. His talk will recount assisting Ceci through nursing school, programs to improve kids’ reading skills, building libraries and computer rooms for three schools, contracting internet services, teaching English, and supplementing salaries for extended school days, all of which he accomplishes without speaking Spanish. “I have my ways and a great group of volunteers,” he says.

Wilkinson is an Oregon native with an MBA. He served for two years as a soldier in Vietnam.  Bill learned to be a skillful organizer during a 30-year career (and worldwide travel) in international shipping. He and his wife, Jane, have visited all the “hidden gems” and nooks and crannies of Mexico, which have exposed them to its beauty and cultural richness as well as its poverty, illiteracy, and inequality.  He and Jane recently incorporated this work as a 501(c)(3) called Apoyo Escolar.

UUFSMA donates fifty percent of its income to support nonprofit organizations that provide health, educational, and environmental services for underserved communities in the San Miguel region. Please support this work by clicking on the website home page Donate button. Now more than ever, your support is essential.

To participate in our online Sunday Service, visit www.uufsma.org and click on the Zoom Service button on the home page. If requested, enter password: 294513. Sign-in from anywhere Sunday mornings between 10:15-10:25 am CST.

In addition to continuing live Zoom services, UUFSMA has returned to limited in-person Sunday services. Reservations are no longer necessary. Space permitting, guests who show their vaccination card can join the in-person service (and be approved for future attendance). Our Fellowship welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Enjoy previous services at https://www.youtube.com/. Enter UUFSMA in the search box.