Lora Garrison, a graduate of Italy ISD, is fulfilling a life long dream of helping children. This dream is taking her to Kenya, Africa.

Lora moved to Italy when she was in the second grade. She graduated from Italy High School and now resides in Salt Lake City, Utah where she graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Human Studies.

At the the young age of 24, Lora will be traveling to a country where Yellow Fever, Malaria, HIV and AIDS run rampant. But Lora’s life long dream has been to travel to Africa and help children. Now, it is becoming a reality for her. On January 13th she will begin her dream by helping in an orphanage with children infected with AIDS and HIV. “I will be living in the orphanage with the children teaching them social skills and English. I will be a mothering influence for them because they have no parents, they are orphans and they no longer have anyone to care for them,” explained Lora.

Lora’s trip to Africa got its start after Lora went to the volunteer office at the University of Utah and explored all the opportunities for volunteers in Africa. After lots of research she found a program through Global Volunteers that went to Kenya. "I wanted to go to Kenya or Uganda really bad. I have some random passion to go to these places, I am not sure why, but I really am passionate about going there,” said Lora.

She has been working with children for the last two years at an elementary school teaching English. So this program seemed to be a perfect fit. “This particular program I signed up with was in Kenya and it was working with children. I have a passion for kids, they are so amazing, they are so innocent and they are so much smarter than we all give them credit for. I just love them, so I signed up, filled out a lot of forms, had a police check, and once cleared by the police, I just paid my program fee. I had to get a few shots, a Yellow Fever shot is required to get into Kenya.”

“I have always had this passion. As I was growing up, I always told my mom that I am going to travel the world and take care of babies that need moms and dads, I have always wanted to adopt babies from Indonesia or Africa. I just have this passion for kids.” Lora went on to say, “People forget about how empty these children’s lives are and they don’t need a pair of brand new shoes to make them happy, they just want someone to love them. Even if it is just one kid in my whole life that remembers me and says do you remember that girl that came here and she didn’t care about anything except us. If I only touch one kid in my whole life I will be happy. I don’t want to live my life and end up thinking that I didn’t ever really do anything to make a difference. I want to fulfill my passion and my passion is to make someone else happy.”

Lora’s dad, Don Garrison said, “It is kind of scary that she is going to Africa. Her mother is scared to death, you hear about all the battles going on in the government. But Lora has always wanted to do this, to help kids, I am glad she gets to do this before she gets enmeshed in her own life.”

Lora will return to Salt Lake City, Utah on March 1st. Her goal is to go back to school to get her masters degree in social work so she can become a counselor for adolescents and children.

“I just have this passion to make a child smile.”