At age 15, Portland student Christina Schmidt has already helped build a school in Cambodia
By Carolina Hidalgo, The Oregonian
June 06, 2010, 12:00PM
View full sizeChristina Schmidt works on a school project for her social studies and English class. After wrapping up her freshman year of high school this month, Schmidt will travel to Guatemala with her family to help build a house through Habitat for Humanity.On a tidy shelf in a bright turquoise bedroom in Southwest Portland sits a framed certificate from the Cambodian Ministry of Education. It is written in Khmer, the official language of the Southeast Asian nation, except for a name: Christina Schmidt. The document, essentially a fancy thank-you note, was presented to the 15-year-old last winter in a tiny village about a day's drive northwest of Phnom Penh after she helped raise more than $16,000 to build a secondary school in the impoverished country.
"I feel like it's part of my duty to give back and to help others who aren't as lucky as I've been," Schmidt said.
Now, as she wraps up her freshman year at Lincoln High School, the teen with a passion for nonprofit work and a knack for raising money is preparing for her next project: a family Habitat for Humanity trip to Guatemala. She and her 13-year-old brother, Andrew, have raised $2,000 to put toward construction supplies. They will donate their time to build a house with the family that will live in it.
Schmidt, sitting at her dining room table, traces her interest in humanitarian work to a 2007 family vacation to Vietnam and Laos that introduced her to