Alumni Spotlight – Sarah Jones ‘07

We all reach a stage in life when we look back and wonder if what we have accomplished with the time we are given has made a difference. Whether you’re approaching that stage, have arrived, or have answered that question, the story of Sarah Jones and what she’s done in the few short years since she’s left Susquehannock will inspire you.

Sarah was an active student athlete. She participated in field hockey from middle school through eleventh grade as a goalie. And she was a second baseman on the Warrior softball teams that made championship his-tory in county, district, and state competition. An excellent student, she earned induction into the National Honor Society in her junior year.

She was also an outstanding violinist. “Mrs. Yeater was my mentor,” she says. “I studied publically and privately with her beginning in third grade. I attribute her for teaching me strict self-discipline that has stayed with me through the years.” Sarah was chosen to play in music festivals, performed with the York Youth and Junior Symphonies, and used her skill to win the talent portion of the York Junior Miss competition.

Outside of school, she was active in her local church and in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

After graduating from Susquehannock in 2007, she went to Grove City College and later to Slippery Rock University, where she became interested in health and exercise science, graduating with a B.S. degree in 2011.

In her senior year, she completed an internship with Dick’s Sporting Goods Corporate Head-quarters and was on her way to a career in corporate wellness, training employee groups in exercise and healthy eating habits.  But it was in that year she was shown a radically different path.

Active in a local church in Slippery Rock, she went on a mission trip to Zambia, a country that has the highest orphan rate in the world. “It opened my eyes to what poverty really is,” she recalls. “What I saw and learned gave me doubts about what I had planned to do with my life.”

She was able to take a week off from her internship for a mission trip to Honduras and her questions were answered.

Upon graduation, she returned to Honduras to work in an orphanage that houses 120 children, both boys and girls.

It wasn’t long before she started her own facility, converting an abandoned medical clinic into a small dormitory. She began with nine girls and now has 16.

Although affiliated with Central American Missions Inc., she is responsible for raising her own funds to finance her operation and works with individual churches throughout the U.S. For Sarah, this is the worst part of the job. “My approach is simple: I have never asked anyone for financial support.  When others contact me, I take the opportunity to share what I do and then watch the Lord do the rest.”

Honduras suffers from a lot of political and civil unrest. There is illiteracy, famine, and disease. But Sarah is committed to making life better for those in her charge.

She teaches them, beginning with the basics: changing their hygiene practices, improving diet and nutrition, enriching their education, and promoting self-sustaining practices through their family garden. She even teaches them to play the violin, and has dreams of accomplishing so much more.

When asked about her long-term plans, she answers simply, “I am going to be the maternal structure for as many children as I can be, indefinitely.”

The challenge is daunting. The girls must re-learn everything from bathing, to drinking clean water, to basic math skills, to pulling weeds from a garden. But Sarah’s plans for them don’t stop with the basics. “I have bigger dreams for these girls,” she says. “I want to teach them to serve others outside of our little compound.”

Thank you Sarah Jones ’07 for making us Warrior Proud.