Staff Spotlight

From Managing the Phonathon to Helping a Caribbean Non-profit Agency, that’s Byron French!
by Susie P. Gonzalez

Spending five weeks working with a faith-based nonprofit foundation in the Dominican Republic last summer reinforced Byron French’s realization of how much people in the United States take for granted – running water, plentiful food, jobs, and a functional educational system.

“So many people in the rest of the world are born into a third world society.  It hits you when you see it first-hand,” says the manager of student calling programs for the Development Office, who graduated from Trinity in 2002 with a degree in international business and went on to earn a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. He is best known for heading up the Trinity Phonathon.

While in graduate school, French met a woman who was learning how to set up a nonprofit agency in a third world country to help impoverished families. She founded Makarios International, an educational development nonprofit foundation based in Austin that serves Hispañola, the Caribbean island that houses Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Because of some shifts in staffing, she asked French to spend his summer vacation filling the gaps. To hear his story is to learn some political, social, and cultural history of the region.  It also is a chance to feel his passion about working with island villagers who have so little.

Every day was different. When it rained, roads would become muddy washouts, making travel a thrill a minute. Other days were spent paying bills, helping sugar cane farmers, teaching children how to color and do crafts, cooking meals, and so on. One day’s task was to organize a water truck to bring in enough bottled water for a village for a week. The cost? A mere $12. “Otherwise, the women would walk for hours to get water while the men worked in the sugar fields making $2 a day,” French says.

He credits Marc Raney, vice president for advancement, for allowing him to bundle his accrued vacation days with some unpaid leave, thus enabling him to work with the foundation. For more information, visit www.makariosinternational.org.

Would he consider returning to the Dominican Republic? “Tomorrow, if I could,” he exudes. He does plan to visit as often as possible to track the families he met, and one day, he hopes to adopt an international child.