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Oct 15, 2003

"After the verb 'to love,' the verb 'to help' is the most beautiful verb in the world." --Bertha Von Suttner

Ike Says "Vamos" to Poverty in Mexico

In 1987, three neighbors in tiny Weston, Vermont, gathered over coffee to compare notes on their recent trips to Mexico. Years later one of them, Ike Patch, would say it was the best cup of coffee they ever had. Mexico has more billionaires than any other third-world country, yet 40 percent of its people live in extreme poverty -- compared with 25 percent in India -- and are not helped by their government. So Ike and friends decided to at least do something small. Sixteen years later, their "small" initiative, called VAMOS!, has blossomed into eighty-two projects that aid about forty communities in the Mexican state of Morelos and serve 370,000 meals per year to impoverished people, including 2,200 children. Ike Patch, at 91, still leads the effort!