NMH Magazine : Winter 2007

Can Do

Our Alumni and Students Are Famed for Their Volunteerism

Learning the art of giving back is part and parcel of an NMH education. Here are four alums who use their hard-earned professional skills in their volunteer work, whether it be dentistry, music-making, advocacy, or counseling people in crisis.

Marshall Horwitz ’71 wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He leans close to the tape recorder and speaks loudly so as not to be mistaken: “I’m not Mother Teresa. I’m not Jesus Christ.” Not that he’d pass for either. A dentist with a long-time practice in Worcester, Massachusetts, Horwitz looks like—well, a suburban dentist.

“I’m just doing a little thing in my own small way to make the world a bit of a better place.” He sits back, shoeless, black-socked, and rumple-haired, slightly anomalous in his own pale, plush living room.

Horwitz may be the walking definition of anomaly. He’s Jewish but travels regularly to Asia with Christian mission groups. He doesn’t venture in the woods behind his house (“If it requires mosquito repellent, I don’t go”), yet he’s spent weeks living in grossly primitive conditions in rural China and Mongolia. He would rather save a tooth than pull one, but he’s extracted thousands. He’s an ordinary man, yet he has an extraordinary calling.

Horwitz’s journey into I-am-not-a-sainthood began in 1994 when he saw a notice in the Journal of the American Dental Association about a one-month medical trip to China. Maybe it was a midlife thing, but the idea grabbed him, and he signed up with the Christian Medical Society as part of an 80-person team to provide care to patients in the hinterlands of China.

The trip was a nightmare in many ways: he suffered from constipation and diarrhea, slept in filthy rooms, worked without plumbing or electricity, and had to use recycled syringes and splintered tongue depressors. As he pulled out tooth after tooth while lines of patients with ravaged mouths endlessly multiplied, his idealism began to wilt. He realized he couldn’t save everybody: what he was doing was just a drop in the ocean.

When Horwitz got home, he vowed, “I’m never going back.”

But he did go back. And back. And back. And back. All told, he’s been to China four times; this past summer he spent three weeks as part of a Christian medical mission to Mongolia, where he extracted 400 teeth.

“I lead a very dull life,” Horwitz says placidly. The air is thick with an impending punch line, something he delivers frequently. He does, after all, look like he could be a distant cousin of Jerry Lewis.

“Susan!” he calls his wife, who’s puttering in another part of the house. Petite and raven-haired, she enters the living room. A part-time speech pathologist, she’s never accompanied him on his trips (“Her idea of camping is the Marriott,” Horwitz says) and admits that when their son and daughter (now 18 and 20) were young, his trips were tough on the family.

“Susan, she asked what I like to do when I’m not working. I said I’m boring.”

“Very boring,” she seconds.

“See, I’m a boring person. I don’t drink at all. I don’t run around with women that much. My mistresses are cheap.”

“You don’t really have any hobbies,” Susan calmly volunteers. The matter settled, she gracefully exits the room.

In fact, Horwitz does have a hobby: learning Chinese. He vowed to master the language after his first trip, when he didn’t speak a word of Chinese and had to rely on interpreters. After 12 years of study, he’s become reasonably conversant; he carries a Chinese dictionary with him everywhere, and his efforts net him topnotch service at Chinese restaurants in eastern Massachusetts.

The real payoff, however, is being able to converse directly with terrified patients in mountain villages in the furthermost reaches of China. “When you say in Chinese, ‘Put your heart at ease, there’ll be no pain’ to patients who’ve never seen a Caucasian before, much less one coming at them with a needle—that builds bridges between people.”

His consuming hobby, of course, is his volunteer work—and it’s not cheap. He pays his way for each trip (the jaunt to Mongolia cost $3,500) and shuts down his dental practice during the weeks he’s away. “I don’t play golf; I have no interest in watching football on TV. This is what I spend my money on.”

His trips are not exactly dream vacations; the suffering he’s seen stays with him. Horwitz vividly recalls treating a young woman in Choyr, Mongolia, who had a raging infection in her upper left jaw. He gave her Novocain, then extracted a badly broken-down tooth. A river of green and yellow pus flowed out, so putrid that it permeated the room. Asked how long she’d been suffering, she said two or three months. “Why did you wait so long?” one of the medical team asked. She explained that a village dentist had ripped out her tooth on the other side, and it hurt so much (Novocain is nonexistent in Mongolia) she was afraid to go back.

Then there are the grimy toilets, the goat meat, and the spit buckets. But there are also villagers throwing flower petals at the group’s bus, and a hero’s welcome when the volunteers arrive. There are Chinese dentists ready to be taught Western techniques, and a sense that maybe, just maybe, your teaching will make a difference.

There are breaking points too, like the time Horwitz was treating patients in a hospital deep in the mountains of China’s Sichuan province. Every time he requested something, the answer came back “Meiyou”—“We don’t have this.” Finally he threw down his instruments and stalked out of the hospital. He wound up in a public park, where he encountered a minister who was traveling with the group.

“Reverend, I’m so frustrated,” Horwitz said. “These people want miracles out of me. They want me to fix all their teeth at one time, and I have no instruments, no materials, no anesthetic. When Jesus made wine out of water, at least he had water. I don’t even have that.”
The reverend replied, “Marshall, just do the best you can. That’s all God asks of you.”

And so the breaking point became a turning point.

Speaking of God, what’s a Jewish guy doing traveling around with groups like Servants in the Name of Christ and the fervently evangelical Macedonians?

Horwitz smiles and shrugs. “I don’t necessarily understand that way of thinking, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m there to help the group help people. As long as I’m helping people, I’m getting my fulfillment.”

Horwitz’s live-and-let-live philosophy, no doubt honed by his status as a Republican in liberal Massachusetts, extends to his own religious beliefs. “I’m not the most religious person,” Horwitz says. “I don’t keep kosher. I figure God isn’t going to judge me based on the contents of my stomach. I think he’s going to judge me more by the contents of my heart.”

He draws much of his ethics from a fellow named Joe Kordana, who was his work job supervisor during his junior year at NMH. Horwitz makes a contribution to the school every year in Kordana’s name and visits him frequently at his home in Bernardston, Massachusetts. “I don’t remember any calculus and I can’t speak a word of French, but the lessons I learned from him about hard work, honesty, and integrity, I’ve carried with me throughout life.”

Horwitz pauses and looks uncharacteristically serious. There’s no whiff of a punch line. “What you learn from NMH transcends what you learn at NMH.”

His love of the school led him to bring back a morin khuur, or Mongolian horsehair fiddle, from his summer 2006 trip. He gave it to NMH for the new arts center, and it caused a hullabaloo in Chicago when airport security mistook the bubble-wrapped fiddle for a gun. “Every policeman in Chicago must have had his arms on me,” he recounts with Walter Mitty-ish relish.

Horwitz is ready to head to his dental office a few miles from his house in Holden, but first there’s a plumbing predicament to manage. He nervously runs and reruns his fingers through his hair as he negotiates with Susan about what needs to be done.

“Calm down, Marshall,” she says; one has the sense that her unruffled serenity provides much of the foundation for her husband’s grueling journeys.

The plumbing crisis on hold, he leads the way to his small, hygienically white office, where he’s run a solo practice for 24 years. Horwitz stands by a wall of People magazine covers featuring himself as the “Sexiest Man Alive” (thanks to the wonders of Photoshop) and hands his visitor a goody bag containing a toothbrush, dental floss, and toothpaste. Then he points out one of his most prized possessions: a framed piece of brilliant red Chinese calligraphy, given by grateful patients during his fourth trip to that country. It is, he explains, a passage from First Corinthians. He rummages through his office for a Bible and, rather remarkably, produces one.

Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

* * *

Singer-songwriter Steffani Bennett ’85 has never met Linda, a six-year-old girl from Florida, but knows she loves Elmo, Tinker Bell, and her best friend, Claire. Bennett has put all the sunny details of Linda’s life in a song just for her, something she can play whenever she wants to bring out the joy again. The other details, the hard ones about leukemia and chemotherapy, don’t go in the song. They never do.

Linda is the girl we adore
And no one ever could ask for more
She is like a star in the sky
She smiles and, oh, how her spirit shines!

Bennett, a dramatic redhead with a smile that lights every inch of her face, has written about 400 songs for terminally and chronically ill children through the Songs of Love Foundation. She’s been part of it since the earliest days, when founder John Beltzer, whose brother’s suicide provided the impetus for the organization, asked a handful of musicians to compose songs. Ten years after its founding, Songs of Love has recruited more than 350 artists and created over 10,000 songs. In 2005, CBS featured Songs of Love—and Steffani Bennett—on 60 Minutes.

“A musician’s life can be very selfish out of necessity,” says Bennett, who’s tough enough to have dug out a place in the New York music scene (she works as a backup and session singer for artists such as Wayne Brady and Lesley Gore), yet soft enough to weep when she gets a thank-you note from a sick child. “It’s a great way to give back and still use my talents.”

The song-birthing process begins when Songs of Love sends Bennett a child’s profile filled out by parents or hospital staff (nearly every children’s hospital in the country participates) that lists all the things he or she loves to do. Bennett writes the lyrics, which must include every detail on the profile. “It’s sort of an organizational challenge,” she says. “It’s like, oh gosh, I’ve got sixteen family members I’ve got to mention! But it’s creative in that I pay attention to the child’s age and taste in music and write according to that.”

Mom and Dad and Malissa
And Jon love Linda so
And Lily and Levi snuggle close
They’re the greatest family, don’t you know!

She composes the music—usually pop with a hip-hop beat—using a computer software program that can deliver anything from live drums to a full orchestra. If the child has a favorite artist, she’ll emulate that style. Then she records the song, condenses it to an MP3, and e-mails it to Songs of Love. Her creation becomes a one-of-a-kind CD, complete with cover art and printed lyrics, which goes to the child’s home.

“It’s very satisfying to know I’m creating a little light in a dark situation,” says Bennett, who writes four or five songs a month (she receives a nominal fee for each). She’s given 25 days to create each song, though in rare cases where a child is critically ill, she’s asked to send it sooner. In those cases, the song becomes more of a legacy.

Songs of Love recipients range from infants to teenagers, but they’re not the only beneficiaries. “One parent sent me a letter saying that her child smiled for the first time in a year when he got the song. That’s when I realized the songs aren’t just for the children. They’re for the families, too.”

Bennett’s singing career began at NMH, where she first studied voice, sang in all the choirs, and performed in coffeehouses on campus. “NMH was where I cut my teeth,” she says. “It’s the time in my life I’m most grateful for in terms of my education and my growth.”
It’s also where she was introduced to the music of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Neil Young, and other great singer-songwriters—influences still heard in her music (she was grand prize winner of the 1998 USA Songwriting Competition and made a debut CD, I’m the Girl), which she describes as “pop-folk.”

Sharing her musical gifts with Songs of Love has become part of who she is, and she plans to keep on doing it. “I don’t think anything could be more satisfying. It’s so meaningful to be able to provide a little bit of joy in a child’s life.”

* * *

John Lozada ’75 grew up in the projects of New York City’s East Harlem, the son of a Puerto Rican mother who put in 14-hour days selling women’s sportswear. When he was ten, she got him a “keep-off-the-streets” summer job at a neighborhood florist called Eppy’s. Decades later, Lozada still remembers his first—and last—day of work with revealing indignation. It began with cutting roses. There was no introduction to the business, no explanation of his duties, just silence as he struggled with the unfamiliar flowers and their sharp thorns. After a half hour, he asked Eppy, the taciturn Latino owner, “So what are my hours going to be?”

The man thought a while and replied from eight am until about eight pm.

“OK,” Lozada said agreeably. Next he asked, “Eppy, what are you going to pay me for this work?”

The florist didn’t answer. Instead he took the roses out of the boy’s hands and told him to go home: Lozada had just been fired from his first job.

“I thought there was an unfairness about what had happened,” he recalls. “All I was asking about were the conditions of the job, and, essentially, I got that job taken away from me.”

Is it any surprise that Lozada, a Boston attorney, has focused on civil rights, labor, and employment law all of his professional life?
Lozada is chief of enforcement for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and he’s held positions with the City of Boston’s Human Rights Commission and the US Department of Education in the Office for Civil Rights. For decades he’s also volunteered his legal skills to further the rights of Latinos.

He began volunteering for Latino causes as a student at the University of California’s Hastings School of Law, where, with the National Center for Youth Law, he worked on national issues including opposing the federal government’s practice of detaining truant minority children to entice their undocumented immigrant parents into the open. He also helped a Hispanic woman end 16 years of work-related sexual abuse in his first days at the Instituto Laboral de la Raza, a nonprofit workers’ rights organization. His Spanish was halting then, but his growing understanding of the law was not. “I really started finding a voice,” says Lozada. “I found something of value.”

After he came to Boston in 1986, he helped establish the state’s Hispanic bar association and was a founding member of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights. In those early days, the fledgling groups he helped didn’t have computers or offices; they met in people’s homes. Lozada helped them learn how to become nonprofits and gain financial stability by linking to larger, already established groups. When it came time for a letter pushing a political point, he scrutinized the wording for legal minefields. He wrote grants, helped establish rules of procedure, and dealt with complicated personnel conflicts.

The Massachusetts National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights disbanded, but not before increasing the visibility of the Latino community and the number of Latino legislators and judges in the state. The fruits of this work thrive today in the form of El Jolgorio (The Revelry) of Massachusetts, a nonprofit organization incorporated by Lozada, which fosters educational programs for Latino youth. Every December, El Jolgorio holds New England’s largest Latino Christmas gala; the 2006 celebration was so huge that it took place in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Lozada is also on several advisory boards, offering his knowledge on bridging cultural gaps to organizations like Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. In addition, he recently started advocating for Puerto Rican citizens who want a fair opportunity to determine their island’s future. He feels compelled to help Latinos and others surmount obstacles in their lives because so many haven’t had his opportunities. This compulsion drives both his volunteer work and his career as a public servant.

“For me, the NMH experience was about doing good for somebody else, so I seek out those opportunities,” says Lozada, whose association with NMH introduced him to people who have dedicated their lives to public service. “I turned away from working at a big firm where, if successful, I might have been making a million dollars a year, to work for the state government. I know I’m not crazy because I’m in good company.”

* * *

When the earthquake and tsunami hit Indonesia in December 2004, survivors told Karon Konner ’93 they felt the ground shake violently beneath their feet. Soon afterward the first wave hit; it was black, hot, full of debris, and smelled like sulfur. Then came towering blue waves, up to 60 feet high, making the devastation of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, nearly complete.

Konner, a clinical social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital, shipped to Banda Aceh about a month after the disaster that caused the deaths of 230,000 people. As part of Project HOPE, she was a volunteer for a first-of-its-kind joint civilian/military medical operation sailing on the USNS Mercy. The mission of the Mercy, a floating, 1,000-bed hospital, was to heal survivors.

The first few days were hell. “Initially we were just overwhelmed,” Konner says. “People were digging out of the mud, digging out bodies. In the hospitals, most of the patients and staff were dead, and helpers were still trying to figure out who was dead and who had left the area. The devastation is hard to even capture.”

Konner’s particular mission was to support the mental health of the medical staff and to help the devout Muslim patients—many had never visited a doctor before—and their families adjust to life aboard a Western ship. With a fellow social worker from Mass General and colleagues at the US Department of Public Health, she put into place a mental health framework to support the psychosocial needs of both staff and patients, most of whom had lost everything: their homes, their jobs, their loved ones. Using her counseling skills, Konner—who at Mass General helps patients and their families deal with crises, illness, and other life stressors, including making end-of-life decisions—was able to let them open up feelings that had been too painful to express, so those memories of the tragedy wouldn’t emerge in unhealthy ways later.

She helped set up a prayer room on the ship (most Indonesians on board prayed five times a day) and helped the survivors, who had lived in extreme poverty, get used to the different food and to unfamiliar customs such as using a toilet. She also helped create a room for artistic expression, where survivors gathered to draw and paint the horrors they experienced. She remembers the intricate drawing a 15-year-old boy made of a truck. “He worked on that truck for hours,” she says. She learned it was the truck that carried away the dead bodies. “For him it was a productive way of dealing with the trauma.”

Returning home brought its own difficulties. While Konner’s world had been transformed by what she saw in Asia, the affluence of the United States remained the same. “I couldn’t go into a grocery store for weeks,” she says, “knowing these people had nothing.”
Her trip to Banda Aceh kindled a desire to be a part of disaster relief teams, and she joined MA-1 DMAT, a disaster medical assistance team under the purview of FEMA. After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Konner was deployed to Mississippi and New Orleans, where she helped counsel medical professionals who worked 12-hour shifts (and often longer)
for seven days a week. She also helped ease the trauma for survivors who’d lost everything.

“They were forced to adjust to such a dramatic change so suddenly,” she says. Often, as in Indonesia, her patients had been lacking access to basic health care before the disaster. Some were coping well; others needed to be psychiatrically hospitalized. Konner found the experience awe-inspiring. “You’re there in the intimacy of the difficult times in their lives, and to share that is humbling.”

Last June she traveled to Honduras, again volunteering her time, with the nongovernmental organization Honduras Hope. There she worked with the severely impoverished residents on improving conditions and creating a sustainable community. “It’s a different, more preventive aspect of relief work,” she says.

For Konner, the first step on her journey to being a disaster relief volunteer began at NMH, where the community instilled in her a sense that we are responsible for more than just ourselves. “That has gone a long way toward making me feel this responsibility to society.”

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