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Dunmore mother, son team up for Operation Honduras

Karen and Jimi Dartt work to make a difference for people in villages of Honduras.

RALPH NARDONE Times Leader Correspondent

A mother and her son from Dunmore are helping make a difference in the lives of others in another part of the world.

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Jimi Dartt teaches Honduran children Marisol, Keilin and Juan one of his hand signs he uses when he’s back home in the United States. Dartt and his mother, Karen, are volunteers for Operation Honduras, which works to improve the quality of life for Hondurans.

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Karen Dartt shares a moment with a Honduran girl, Keilin Lusia Peralta Mendez, which she was helping during one of her recent trips as a volunteer with Operation Honduras.

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Karen Dartt and her son, Jimi, 25, both of Dunmore, serve as volunteers for “Operation Honduras,” a group of northeast Pennsylvania volunteers who travel to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, every year for a week to help improve the quality of life for orphans and other Hondurans.

For the past three years, they have traveled to San Pedro Sula for one week in February, where they exit the plane and venture out with other volunteers to isolated villages that lack even the very basic services residents of Pennsylvania may take for granted.

Children born in Honduras literally have nothing, Karen said.

A graduate of Dunmore High School and an insurance adjuster for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the past 12 years, Karen said she became involved after being repeatedly approached by OH organizer Jim Davenport. When Davenport convinced Jimi to go, she decided to take the project on as a twosome.

“It’s become a mother and son thing,” Karen said. This past February they worked on building a kindergarten center and put a new roof on a church, she said.

“You can’t even imagine,” Karen said. “The villages are on dirt roads, the (families) don’t have running water or electricity …It’s basically shacks they live in, shacks maybe made of cinder blocks or wood.”

“Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere,” Jimi said. “It relies heavily on the United States for aid.”

The volunteers are lodged in the capital but go out to the villages to work each day, she said.

Often the villages are 45 miles from the capital, at the end of dirt roads where the people are isolated from schools and other services. The high level of crime in the country isolates villagers even more, she said.

The parents won’t send their children to school because of the danger they face, she added.

That’s why OH concentrates on building schools in the villages where they can bring the service to the families who really need it.

One family with 17 children and grandchildren the Dartts visited were cramped into a two-room shack.

Karen bought the children three outfits each to wear to school. When delivering the outfits she was approached by the family’s grandmother who pleaded for shoes for them as well, Karen said.

Jimi becomes very attached to the youngsters there, she said. During one trip he purchased 20 Boston Red Sox shirts and passed them around. The children run to greet him often asking if he’ll be back the next day, she added.

Karen said even though the children there only go to school for about six years and don’t have the whole educational experience children in Pennsylvania have, they are often very happy. Jimi teaches them American songs in English and they annunciate them to perfection even though they have no clue what they are singing, she said.

The projects OH volunteers work on when they are there can be relatively large in scale, such as putting additions on schools and building orphanages, she said. The projects are usually planned well in advance through OH. About 18 local people coordinate the visits to help in the planning and to collect materials that will be needed, she said. When she and Jimi arrive their work is ready for them.

In addition to volunteering, Karen also contributes $1,000 to OH and donates to other local charities throughout the year. She started a Carissa Dartt Scholarship Fund in honor of her daughter who died a few years ago. Each year a golf tournament at the Summit Hills Golf Club in Clarks Summit raises about $20,000 in Carissa’s honor. A $5,000 scholarship is awarded to a Dunmore High School student each May, she said.

Success of the OH trips is made possible through the help of volunteers like the Dartts and sponsors in northeast Pennsylvania who make the trips possible, according to OH.

Dartt hopes to continue her work there, she said.

The villages are very receptive to the visits and usually make lunch for the volunteers when they get there.

However, the government of Honduras continually warns of increased danger from people who don’t want the volunteers to arrive, she said.

Karen Dartt

Jimi Dartt

TOWN OF RESIDENCE: Dunmore

OCCUPATION: Insurance adjuster, Pennsylvania State Workers Insurance Fund

HOW MANY YEARS? 12 years

CHARITIES, VOLUNTEER PROJECTS: Annual trip to Honduras; Carissa Dartt Scholarship Fund Golf Tournament; $5,000 Scholarship for a Dunmore High School student

FAMILY: Husband, Jim; son, Jimi

EDUCATION: Dunmore High School graduate

HOBBIES, INTERESTS: Contributing to charitable causes throughout northeast Pennsylvania; keeping a nice home in Dunmore

TOWN OF RESIDENCE: Dunmore

OCCUPATION: Graduate of Dunmore High School, student at Penn State Worthington Scranton

HOW MANY YEARS? 4 years

CHARITIES, VOLUNTEER PROJECTS: Annual trip to Honduras with mother Karen and Operation Honduras

FAMILY: Karen, mom, and Jim, father

EDUCATION: Graduate of Dunmore High School, pursuing degree in business management from Penn State Worthington Scranton

HOBBIES, INTERESTS: playing sports, avid Boston Red Sox and New York Jets fan, traveling and going to concerts

Volunteer of the Week is a regular feature in The Times Leader Scranton Edition that recognizes individuals, businesses or other organizations for their volunteer efforts and contributions to their communities. To nominate someone or an organization to be considered for this feature, e-mail mondrako@scrantonedition.com or call 558-01 13.