Sue Bender started volunteering when she was a freshman in high school at the Veterans Hospital, and she hasn’t stopped since.

Idle time isn’t on her lifetime schedule.

When her children were in the Davis County schools, she volunteered in classrooms. She taught English as a Second Language to a group of Laotian immigrants She’s always been active in her church and for years has delivered Meals on Wheels.

When she and her husband, Steve, a dentist, moved back to Iowa City after 26 years in Bloomfield, she jumped in again. She and Steve returned in October from a trip to Belize for the Belize Mission Project, an offshoot of the Christian Dental Society, where they were part of a group of 40 to 45 people who provided free dental and medical services to the poor. They saw hundreds of patients, many of whom had never seen a dentist.

“They can’t afford it,” Bender said.

While she isn’t trained in dental work, she helps by comforting patients, sterilizing equipment and making due in places with no electricity or running water.

This is the 10th year she and Steve have gone on the Belize trip.

“It’s just kind of a way to give back,” she said

She’s working toward a teaching certificate in Iyengar yoga and knew a woman at her church whom she thought might benefit from yoga, so she approached her and asked if she was interested.

The woman, who is blind, said she had always wanted to try yoga, so Bender has picked up the woman once a week for several months and taken her to her home for yoga.

“I’ve always taught by demonstrating,” Bender said. “It’s very challenging. She’s helped me because I’ve learned to describe things better.”

She keeps with her a card on which is written: “To the world you may be only one person, but to one person you may be the world.” It was a devotional that the group used in Belize.

Bender’s life is a clear demonstration of the value of human connection, even on the most elemental level.  

— Susan Harman

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