A CONAPAC Champion
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does her garden grow? With helping hands and her generous heart everywhere she goes!
Mary at the community she sponsors, Nuevo Triunfo CA 2019
A CONAPAC Champion An essay by CONAPAC Board Vice President and former Executive Director, Sintia Smith
One of CONAPAC’s longest-serving volunteers and vocal advocates for the Adopt-A-School program, at 92, Mary is not done yet. Since her first volunteer trip with the Adopt-A-School (AAS) program in 2001, Mary has returned to Peru 18 times to assist with deliveries! She continues to support AAS, and other CONAPAC programs, through her words and deeds—and currently is contemplating her 19th Adopt-A-School in 2026.
Through a citizen science trip to the Amazon rainforest, sponsored by the Detroit Zoological Society in 1999, Mary joined to assist with their butterfly project. While staying with CONAPAC partner Explorama Lodges, she met Pamela Bucur--an educator from the USA who had relocated to Peru to live and work in the late 1980’s. Mary, being a retired educator herself, felt an immediate bond and sense of common purpose—supplying young students living in the rainforest with the most rudimentary tools for learning: pencils and a few notebooks. As Mary learned more about the Adopt-A-School program, then just a few years old, she soon signed on for a week to help with the delivery of books and school supplies.
Once immersed in the process, learning more about the needs and related successes of the program, Mary returned home to begin advocating for the program at the Detroit Zoo. She tirelessly hammered home to Zoo leadership how beneficial a partnership with CONAPAC--and the AAS program--could be for the environmental work and goals of the Detroit Zoological Society. Over the years, and through various leadership changes, the Detroit Zoo has increased its resources to Peru. It has been a major reason for CONAPAC’s success and ability to thrive, even through the COVID-19 pandemic!
Mary is a long-standing member of Detroit-area Rotary clubs. After 25 years, she is currently active in the Lyon Area Rotary Club out of South Lyon, MI. One of her first overseas volunteer trips was to India, where Rotarians helped with polio vaccinations and other goodwill efforts. Besides Peru and the Adopt-A-School volunteer trips, Mary has made several journeys to Africa. Well into her 80s, she visited Ethiopia, Niger, and Ghana, to help with more polio vaccination programs and community service projects for rural schools.
Mary’s insight, support, goodwill, public presentations, donations, and time and energy have continually provided positivity for CONAPAC, its staff, volunteers, and all its programs, which have grown and expanded. Our current programs include: Adopt-A-School, providing school supplies to every student and environmental education support to every school; Clean Water, aimed at increasing access to drinking water in partner communities; Sustainable Development, focused on planting and harvesting vital fruit trees for family beneficiaries; and Community Conservation and Sustainability, helping communities envision futures for their children filled with rainforest resources.
Did Mary do all this? No.
But did her regular championing of CONAPAC and its programs move the needle forward? Absolutely! Mary is one of CONAPAC’s most beloved volunteers and supporters. The first questions from returning Adopt-A-School volunteers each year is, “Where’s Mary? Is she signed up again for this year?” The party doesn’t start until Mary arrives!
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