Liz Simpers is on a mission to change the world, one person at a time. She is the Senior High Teen Director for the Cary YMCA, but Simpers is passionate about global responsibility. She shows this by volunteering many hours with Kingdom Builders Ministry in Jamaica.

“It changes your life to watch people grow,” said Simpers, who is on her fourth Kingdom Builders trip this week. The mission team includes nine others, from the Cary area and friends from Penn State.

The goal of this trip is to build bunk beds and to distribute the 125 Buckets of Blessings that were collected last month in Cary and three other locations in the United States. The “buckets” are actually 20-gallon plastic Sterlite storage containers filled with clothes and other items the families in Jamaica need.

The buckets will lift the spirits of the families, but won’t do much to help move them out of the devastating poverty of the region. “Poverty, unemployment and inequality in Jamaica rank among the worst in the Americas,” stated a recent International Monetary Fund report.

As Simpers talks about the families who will receive the buckets, Bibles and other donated supplies, it’s easy to see that she is passionate about her volunteer effort in Jamaica.

The work of the mission teams vary and can include working at the infirmary that Simpers describes as being like a leper colony.

“The infirmary is more like a home for the forgotten,” she said. “Some are elderly, some are handicapped. All are people that have no other home – no family to care for them, no person to hug them, no home to die peacefully.”

Simpers, who is on the Kingdom Builders Ministry board, plans to continue the work in the country by leading another trip in December. She won’t stop there with her desire to inspire others.

In 2010, Simpers and three friends developed the “Go. Change. Move.” initiative that encourages others to discover what they are passionate about, and do the thing that will change their life and the lives of others around them.

“People seem to have stopped listening to God,” Simpers said. “It’s time to shift from the impossible to say, I’m going to change the world.”

Cameron Hardell, a recent Apex High School graduate, is one of the ten now in Jamaica. He said Simpers inspires him, and the trips to Jamaica have been life-changing.

“This trip to Jamaica will be my third time, but it only took one visit to fall in love with Jamaica and the people that live there,” Hardell said. “Liz is one the best motivators and encouragers that I have ever met.”