“Morocco may seem like an exotic destination,” said Steve Huff, “but parts of northern Africa in that area also feature alarming pockets of poverty. It’s not all the setting of Casablanca that we think of.”
Huff, 43, who is currently the director of Communication Design at Virginia Western Community College, took his wife Stacey to northern Africa in 2003. That’s when the couple decided to forego the gaming tables, and change their lives forever by changing the lives of others.
“My wife and I started the non-profit organization World Relief Now (WRN) in October of 2005, after having traveled pretty extensively and having witnessed the acute poverty in many different parts of the world,” said Huff, a man with Hollywood good-looks and a penchant for BMW motorcycles. He looks a lot more like an actor poised to star adjacent to Steve McQueen in a film like “The Great Escape,” rather than a missionary. But mission work is exactly what he and Stacey Huff do.
“We wanted to create an organization that would begin to fix things that we felt were fixable,” said Huff. “The mind-set behind the organization was to commit ourselves to finding the most efficient, effective way to reach out to those in need, not government to government, but person to person.”
There are less than 50 individuals world-wide serving in the WRN organization, but that’s the way Huff wants it. His budget runs tight from project to project with nothing left over for the crap tables, so to speak, and no overhead.
“It may sound like a poor plan for a business, but it works perfectly for us,” explained Huff. WRN works from a vision to attainment of that particular vision, always striving for as much sustainability as the group can possibly achieve. Then they move on to achieve the next vision with its own budget and of course, its own bills.
“It’s a personal, grassroots approach. We try not to be bureaucratic; however, it does take money,” confessed Huff. “But we are very proud of having learned how to stretch a dollar and we have no paid staff. Instead, we work with like-minded people all over the world and we depend a lot on the generosity of many folks world-wide.”
WRN is beginning an exciting project in Brazil that began with a simple conversation between Huff and a man who just happened to be seated next to him on a plane, a man who also happened to represent corporate America.
“Corporate America generally wants to be involved in helping those who are less fortunate,” said Huff, “but the timing has to be right and some corporations need to be educated as to how to go about it.”
That’s what WRN does so well. There are now projects in the planning stages for Malaysia. Maybe it’s serendipity, or maybe it’s just plain guts. Huff picked up the phone one day and called the president of Keen Footwear out in Oregon because he saw their advertisement in a magazine. He asked if the footwear company would like to partner with WRN by sending some shoes to families in a remote village in Senegal.
The owner of Keen Footwear said that sounded pretty keen to him. “How about 1,000 pairs of new shoes?,” the owner asked.
Another project Huff developed is a product he calls “life straws.”
“Life straws are personal water filters,” said Huff. “We’ve designed them to prevent water-born illnesses. They only cost about $5.00, but last for about two years.”
Another self-designed project created by Huff consists of packs of coloring books with descriptions of proper sanitation in big, enticing drawings for children in the villages of Asia, Africa and South America. Huff oversees each project, devoting his vacation days from the college to traveling around the globe protecting his assets: the friends he has made from Kuala Lumpur to Brasília; Yoruba to Botswana.
“The common thread and the theme I keep seeing despite the unimaginable poverty in many underdeveloped countries, is that people who have nothing are often very happy,” said Huff. “People living in conditions that seem dire to Americans are often happy and they will do all that they can to make others happy, perhaps because life is so basic, there are no distractions, or perhaps because that’s all they know.”
Huff admits that he has formed very strong attachments to many people through his work in WRN, even though he knows he may never see them again.
“I feel powerless sometimes, and I want to do much more,” said Huff, “but there’s an African saying: ‘You can only eat an elephant, one bite at a time.’”
WRN’s major goals currently are: malaria prevention, preventative health initiatives and medical assistance, clear water initiatives, and education.
“We work with both faith-based organizations and secular ones — anyone who agrees that people need help, and wants to pitch in to do something about it,” said Huff. “I’ve often wondered how many things never got accomplished because no one dared to try.”
Huff’s best advice is not to think about it too much. It is best, he feels, just to dare to dream your dream, and then do it.
“Life is for living,” he said, like a news flash that’s more than just a sound-bite. “It really is.” One look in Huff’s eyes tells you he fully believes it.
By Mary Ellen Campagna [email protected]