Building bridges, transforming lives

Bridges to Community honors Roger Sitkins for his work in Nicaragua

By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU

Here in the land of flat screen TVs, granite countertops, nd three-car garages, most of us are comfortably removed from the grim circumstances that shape the lives of the nearly 80% of the world’s citizens who live in poverty. We know that disease, hunger, war, govern­ment corruption, and religious intolerance plague tens of millions of our fellows on this planet, but we can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to spend every hour of every day just struggling to survive.

Horror, outrage, and sympathy move us to write checks and support organizations that work with the downtrodden and displaced; but it’s when we step out of our comfort zone and into their reality that we begin to grasp the essence of their struggle and realize that it is our struggle as well.

For those who do take that crucial step, the consequences are life altering—but not in the ways we might think. Just ask Roger Sitkins, who in May received the 2009 Outstanding Vision and Commitment to Action Award from Bridges to Community for his tireless efforts to raise funds and improve the lives of families in rural areas of Nicaragua.

Since 2005, Roger has led five week-long Sitkins Group trips to build more than 100 houses for people who have spent their lives in dwellings cobbled together from rusty corrugated tin, plastic sheets, and whatever else they can scavenge. In that time, Roger also has raised more than $1 million in donations and pledges to support the work of Bridges to Community.

Based in Ossining, New York, Bridges is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization whose service trips are aimed at creating a global community that considers basic needs like shelter, nutrition, health care, education, and employment to be basic human rights.

Accepting the award at the Bridges gala, Sitkins confirmed that in the act of helping their fellow human beings in Nicaragua, the volunteers themselves experience a deep and lasting transformation.

“The people we meet on our trips change our lives more than we change theirs,” he declared.

Introducing Roger Sitkins to the audience was Sitkins member Mark Rollins, who made his first trip with Bridges in 2002 and who subsequently inspired Roger to take a group of agent volunteers to Nicaragua in January 2005.

“In September 2004 Roger allowed me a few minutes to speak at our semiannual member event to talk about my experience with trips and see if there was any interest in joining me,” Mark said.

“In typical ‘Roger fashion,’ he was not going to join anyone else’s trip—he was going to lead his own,” Mark said with a chuckle. “So in January 2005, Roger led his first Sitkins member trip to Nicaragua, and the rest is history.”

That history is both rich and inspiring. Several of the volunteers from Roger’s first trip went on to lead their own groups of volunteers, including his son Patrick, who is marketing director at The Sitkins Group; Rick Baumann of Canada, whose brokerage consultancy last year merged with The Sitkins Group; and agents like Cory Brook, a principal in TCOR Insurance Management in Beeville, Texas.

Mark, who since 2002 has led 14 trips to Nicaragua and also has raised more than $1 million for Bridges, has been recognized for his efforts by Rough Notes magazine, which chose him as a co-recipient of its Community Service Award in 2007, and by Travelers Insurance, where in March of this year he was presented the Travelers Lifetime Achievement Award.

For Roger Sitkins, Mark Rollins, and the countless others whose lives have been transformed by reaching out to families in Nicaragua, the real rewards are intangible and enduring: respect, compassion, and the priceless gift of forging friendships that transcend the boundaries of race, class and privilege.

On that point, Roger is fond of quoting Bonnie Gordon, the Bridges to Community liaison in Masaya:

“People say that coming to Nicaragua with Bridges has turned their lives upside down,” Gordon tells a new group of volunteers. “I say, ‘Maybe it’s turned your life right side up.’”