NMH Magazine : Spring 2003

Deborah Allenby Albert '78

Friends ask Debbie Albert how she can love the children in her care and then let them go. They're speaking of children like Karen Ninoska Gomez, a ten-year-old Honduran girl, who came to live with Debbie and her family on Cape Cod for four months while having open heart surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston. The Alberts loved Karen and became her family as well as her guardian. For Debbie, the truest act of love was letting Karen go so she could return in good health to her own parents. 

Debbie is a volunteer with the Ruth Paz Foundation, which places young cardiac patients from Honduras in her home for their extended recovery. Her fluency in Spanish and her familiarity with Honduras make Debbie an ideal host. But from the start, it was a decision of the whole family, which includes husband Mark, a paramedic, and their four children, aged 11 to 16. 

The program is one of two volunteer enterprises that connect Debbie with Honduras. She also travels to Los Encinitos as part of a medical-dental group sponsored by Cape CARES (Central American Relief Efforts). Since 1995, she has made the weeklong trip 12 times. 

Debbie credits NMH for the dedication to "working with my head, my heart, and my hands" that has colored her life. She grew up on Mount Hermon, where her father, Al Allenby, was a religion teacher and college counselor from 1963 to 1978. She traces her love of Spanish back to eighth-grade summer school at NMH. Debbie spent a semester in Spain during her senior year at NMH, and went on to major in Spanish in college. 

When not involved with her immediate family in Falmouth and her extended one in Honduras, Debbie teaches Spanish at the Falmouth junior high school. As with her volunteer work, she takes on the role of not only teacher, but friend and positive role model.

Describe your volunteer work.