the dobson way

By Marshall Swanson

Before arriving at Carolina six years ago as an undergraduate biology major, Tamera Beam had never traveled outside of the United States.

Now a second-year student at Carolina’s School of Medicine, the Cherryville, N.C., native thinks she might want to spend at least part of her medical career working with underserved people in Latin America.

Her desire to contribute to the well being of others beyond America’s borders came as a result of three transformative spring breaks in which she worked as a volunteer in Costa Rica, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic under the auspices of Carolina’s Dobson Volunteer Service Program.

Established 10 years ago with a $1 million endowment from retired Greenville tax lawyer Robert A. Dobson III, ’60, ’62 law, the program provides about $50,000 a year to defray expenses of volunteer work at home and abroad by students, faculty, and staff.

“I’m thrilled with how well the program is going,” said Dobson, who estimates hundreds of University students and faculty members have taken part in the service. He believes the experience deepens their faith and spiritual life by “getting them out of their comfort zone and into an area where there are people who desperately need help.”

The experiences change participants’ perspectives “from inward to outward,” said Dobson, who sits on a board that reviews and approves proposed projects by volunteers. “They cease being so terribly concerned with themselves and become concerned with and for other people, realizing life is about much more than just personal gratification.

“I’ve heard many students come back from projects and say they have decided to become missionaries or social workers or, in the case of someone going into a medical career, to serve in a charitable capacity overseas.”

Beam’s trips included working alongside other volunteers in Sandalo, Costa Rica, to build a home for an indigent family and assist teachers at a children’s day camp; helping pour five cement floors for homes, installing two drinking water systems and painting a hospital in Oaxaca, Mexico; and assisting at an orphanage and teaching English in the local schools of Monte Cristi in the Dominican Republic.

Other Dobson volunteers have helped with post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts along the Gulf coast, worked with Sister Care in Columbia to assist battered and abused women, built Habitat for Humanity homes in Columbus, Ga., and pitched in on construction of a new orphanage in an area of India devastated by a tsunami, among many other projects.

Students select service projects on their own or join a group to work on a designated task, said Cheryl Soehl, administrative coordinator in the University’s Department of Student Life who also is a Dobson Service Program board member. Most students take part in group-affiliated projects, “but there are plenty of students who design their own.”

Most of the individual student volunteers do their service in the summer because they tend to be going farther away, and Dobson likes students to stay long enough in a country to have an in-depth experience, Soehl said. The Dobson program covers one-half of the expense of a service project “to spread out its resources and make volunteers have some personal investment in it,” said Hal French, an emeritus professor of religious studies and Dobson board member.

Expenses that aren’t reimbursed by the Dobson Program are typically paid for by the participants themselves or organizations such as religious centers and churches. Selection of projects for funding is based on a student’s personal expression of how the project is expected to further his or her spiritual development even though “Mr. Dobson has his own faith affiliation, which is important to him,” Soehl said.

When the students return home, they’re asked to provide a personal reflection of how their service affected them and present it to others by speaking to groups, writing articles, or creating Web sites, Soehl said.

“This has been a fine experience for me,” said Dobson, who has established a similar program at Limestone College in Gaffney and encourages friends and colleagues to do the same at other S.C. colleges and universities.

“My personal belief is that a person should use his wealth for the Lord’s work, and I think this is a great example of that. I’m most pleased with the way it has turned out.”