Compassion drives Mary Kay Boyle. First off, she's a nurse. A St. Louis native reared in rural Missouri, she spent years tending to patients in clinics for the indigent. Later, in West Virginia, she worked as a home-care nurse in impoverished areas of seven counties.
Now, through the First Presbyterian Church, she channels her benevolent nature into Hope Village, a church gift shop featuring Fair Trade products from around the globe.
She selects the merchandise personally, traveling to far-off places at her own expense to meet the artisans who create the shop's inventory.
On every trip, she confirms that the artisans receive 100 percent of the proceeds and that the nonprofit organizations representing them contribute to causes ranging from clean water to educating orphans to helping victims of sex trafficking.
A missionary of sorts, she immerses herself in the culture of the country she's visiting, marveling always at the warmth and diligence of the people and the perfection of their ancestral skills.
She can tell a story related to every item in the Hope Village shop. Behind every hand-crafted necklace and meticulously woven tapestry, she sees the face of the artisan.
And talk about a personal touch. Those Guatemalan tablecloths? She watched the weavers at work. The olive oil? She helped pick the olives in Palestine.
Outgoing and infinitely curious about the world and the people in it, she projects serenity and gentleness, a do-good persona fueled by the heart of a humanitarian.
"I grew up with a wonderful family in rural Missouri - Hannibal, Mark Twain's home. My mother lived to 93 and was incredibly healthy, a farm girl. I thought we ate so many fruits and vegetables because we were poor, but I think mother knew what she was doing.
"At one time, my dad taught salesmanship to students at the University of Missouri journalism school. And he was a car salesman. I loved sports. I was daddy's girl, going to events my mother disliked.
"When I was 12, I was at summer camp listening to a missionary, and I felt called that someday I would be a missionary. As I got to high school, I knew I wanted to be a nurse.
"There were no medical people in my family, but I loved science and math. If I hadn't been a nurse, I would have been a math teacher.
"I went to Deaconess College of Nursing in St. Louis and stayed after graduation.
"Nursing school was very difficult. My daughters say I was the only college student who missed the 1960s' whole drug scene. School was operated by a religious order of nuns. It was very strict.
"I never did psychiatric nursing other than in college, but otherwise I did pretty much everything. I worked in some clinics in St. Louis with the indigent.
"I was married in 1975 to Duane Straube. We divorced in 1980. I was by myself until 1985 when I met Wally and moved to Chicago. After we moved to Chicago, I was a nurse again at times.
"We had a securities firm. Wally did not really want me to work. Some OB-GYNs wanted a part-time nurse to work 20 hours. He said OK if there were no weekends. There were 10 women there for interviews. I was hired.
"At that time, it was the only all-female gynecology practice in Chicago. We had an American doctor, a Chinese, a Jewish lady and a Muslim from India. So our patients really ran the gamut. That was a wonderful time. I ended up being the head nurse.
"After about five years, I quit because my husband really needed me to work with the firm.
"He had 12 children. His wife had died in an accident. He was much older. He was Irish. They age well. It was a wonderful marriage. I had three children by my first marriage, so we had quite a crew. His children welcomed me with open arms.
"We executed trades for small companies around the country. I was like a PR person, and a math person.
"My husband died very suddenly. He had Hodgkin's disease. He was diagnosed the beginning of November and received two chemo treatments. He had PCP pneumonia, the kind you only get with AIDS or cancer. He died Jan. 2 and never left the hospital. He had a 97 percent chance of survival. On autopsy, they found that one of the medications killed him, not the cancer.
"We had just sold our business. Being a St. Louis gal, I hate winter. A daughter lived here. So I moved here. Five years ago, she moved away.
"I was at a loss about what to do when I moved here. I felt God was calling me back to nursing. I became an in-home nurse, covering five to seven counties - Kanawha, Boone, Lincoln, Nicholas and Braxton. So you can imagine.
"I was driving anywhere from 800 to 1,500 miles a week, dealing mostly with the Medicaid population. I was devastated by the poverty, but I found them to be very nice people.
"I talked funnier then. I had a big Chicago thing going. When I called here to get my utilities, I couldn't understand what the people were saying. Many of my patients would say, 'Where are you from? We can't understand you.'
"One of the women here had been trying to get me to go to the International Presbyterian Women's meeting, which is held every three years. The summer of 2009, it was in Louisville. I took a week off. There were women there from all over the world.
"I met this beautiful Congolese woman who was a guest speaker. She was 6 feet tall and wore traditional clothing. I went to tell her how beautiful she was. Her friend walked over and introduced herself. The Holy Spirit, whoever, told me that I really needed to talk to her. I asked if it was possible for us to sit down and talk.
"She was working in the Congo and had formed groups of women to teach them sewing and life skills. There were 900 orphans she was feeding, but she could only feed them three days a week. I asked what they did the other three days. She said three days was all she had, that three days is better than no days. The rest of the days, they were on the streets begging. That played on my heart so much.
"The church here always had a fair around Christmas where they invited Ten Thousand Villages and had catalogs for people to buy Christmas gifts. We have a mission meeting in August. No one was stepping up to chair the fair.
"I said I would chair it and use Ten Thousand Villages. They buy Fair Trade products from around the world and sell them in a store. Or you could call and say you were having a sale and they would send you products.
"At the convention, I met a man from Minneapolis who had been on a mission trip to Palestine and learned of the difficulties there. He wondered how he could help. So he was selling Palestinian olive oil. All the sales are returned to Palestine.
"Now, through him, I'm doing the same thing. I bought a case of olive oil. I thought, if the church won't let me sell it, I will sell it out of my car. I brought the olive oil to the fair.
"The next year, I didn't want to use Ten Thousand Villages. There is nothing wrong with them, but it's a middle person being paid. I wanted to go to the people who make the products and find the organizations working there.
"They must be fair trade, which means the artisan gets a fair price. This is a church, so the organizations must do something else for the artisans, feeding or clean water or education, whatever. The church said OK.
"So we had a four- or five-day event. The last time we did it that way, in 2012, we got all this snow and there was no power. We were to open on Wednesday. Monday, we got that terrible snowfall and no power. We had all this merchandise. What do we do?
"I prayed with Sue Webster, the mission director here. We couldn't postpone. No one had power to learn about this, and it wasn't like a dinner party where call you can call the guests. You don't know who's coming.
"We prayed and prayed. We decided we were going to do it no matter who comes. We opened the doors from noon to 4 [p.m.]. Teachers couldn't work because there was no school. We were mobbed. We sold more than ever.
"We had just finished a major $1 million fundraising project to renovate parts of the church. There was money left. There was a space that used to be the first food pantry that was just a storage space. We asked for $5,000 to turn it into Hope Village.
"When we started tearing out layers, we found the original wood floor and the original brick wall that had been the back of the church
"Hope Village opens the beginning of November and closes a couple of days before Christmas. Last year, we made $43,000. One hundred percent of the proceeds go back to 10 organizations from around the world, including one from Nashville that rescues women from trafficking. The organization that works in Guatemala educates 150 girls.
"I pay all my travel expenses. I travel on medical missions and to visit the artisans that I'm getting products from.
"I've been to Pakistan and Palestine and Thailand and Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua. These are not pleasure trips. It's a mission.
"When I was in Thailand visiting my son and trying to develop a relationship with a Thai organization, we went to this refugee center where they have baby and adult elephants. They take you on an elephant ride up the mountain. And then you watch the elephants. There were eight elephants that did the painting.
"They sit buckets of paint in front of each one and give them a paint brush like you would use to paint a wall. The elephants methodically pick out which paint they want to use. It ends up an abstract. You can see a pattern.
"It doesn't matter what country you are in, the people never have their hands out. They want to show you their life skills, what has been passed down for generations.
"When I walk into the shop, I know all these stories. People see products. I see faces. I love to tell the stories about how the products are made.
"I firmly believe there was a reason I came here. I found the people are amazing and I love the church." Reach Sandy Wells at sandyw@wvgazette.com or 304-342-5027.