Loyalist College student raising money to volunteer abroad

By Deanna Fraser

BELLEVILLE – A Loyalist College student is reaching out to anyone to help him achieve his goal – helping those in need.

Second year nursing student Evan Spicer started a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising another $3,000 for a volunteer opportunity in Zimbabwe next summer. He says he realized helping people was his passion in his final year of high school.

“I used to work at a Tim Hortons in the hospital in Newmarket and saw people suffering,” he said. “I just felt the need to help people and realized the medical field – nursing in particular – was the best way to do so,” he said.

Spicer says he has been saving to go to the city of Mkoba since last July and has already saved $3,000 towards the trip. The total cost of the trip will be $6,000. Spicer says he decided to reach out for help because he is afraid he won’t make his May deadline.

“With rent coming in every month I’m not making enough to actually be able to go in time so I’m looking for some help,” he said.

Spicer says he doesn’t want to limit his help to those in Canada.

“I was looking for volunteer options and what I could do in the community, and where I live in York region there’s not much volunteering to do,” he said. “So I thought I could try and go abroad somewhere and I ended up finding this organization called AfricanImpact.”

The organization started in 2004 and since then has run projects in 12 countries and has had 12,500 volunteers work with them.

Spicer says if he is able to make the month-long trip to Zimbabwe he would spend his days in understaffed medical centres helping professionals with physicals, checking vital signs in patients, filing documentation, among many other tasks.

On top of working with people, Spicer says he would also be spending his time at Antelope Park at the lion conservation area helping cubs interact with their surroundings, stimulating their brain with interactive games and cleaning their enclosures.

“I was looking for something that could help my education, because I am a nursing student,” he said. “So there was one that was a mix between lion conservation and health care. As soon as I saw it I thought it was perfect.”

Spicer said that he is looking for all the help he can get and added that the money raised will go strictly towards the volunteer opportunity.

“It feels so good to know you yourself have done something good for someone else.”