By Laurie D. Morrissey

When nurse Karen Last went skiing in Utah this year, it was the first trip she had taken in a long time that was just for herself. She spends most of her time ministering to the needs of desperate people in far-off places like Haiti, Ecuador, Calcutta, and the Amazon rain forest—as well as in her own New England "back yard." Her activities recently earned her Saint Anselm's 2003 Young Alumni Service Award.

Last has been on so many volunteer medical missions that you'd think she might have trouble keeping track of them. Her Saint Anselm College nursing degree and her personal faith and values have allowed her to bring medical and spiritual relief to some of the neediest people in the world.

Her first experience with international volunteer work was three weeks delivering medical supplies and assistance to 600 residents of a remote Honduran village. The next year, 1997, found her at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Calcutta, India, where she witnessed incredible poverty and suffering. The following year, under the auspices of the Catholic charity Knights of Malta, she delivered care to Haitian street children who slept in burned out buses and cardboard boxes.

In 2002, Last spent six months volunteering at a leprosy hospital in Quayaquil, Ecuador. "These people have been banned from society, some for as long as 40 years," Last says. "The people I know are horrified to think that leper colonies actually exist in this day and age, but the truth is, people are still suffering from this disease." Because of Ecuador's extreme poverty, the hospital is run by an American nun who raises funds by "passing the basket" at churches around the United States.

While in Ecuador, the adventurous alum also worked with an eye surgical team that traveled to remote rainforest villages, often by single-engine plane and tippy canoe. She recalls seeing alligators' eyes glittering at night in the pitch-black Amazon River. When a storm washed away the airplane's landing strip, she ate piranhas and pineapples with the Indians for a week until she could continue her journey. "It was always worth it to see the look on someone's face when they put on a pair of glasses for the first time and could finally see," she says.

Last has spent five summers at Paul Newman's Hole-in-the-Wall Gang Camp for disadvantaged children with life-threatening illnesses. "A place for dying children sounds very sad, but there is something magical about HITW," Last says. "These kids are able to put their chemo, radiation, transfusions, and illnesses behind them and enjoy their childhood again-even if it's only for a week. Each summer, I look forward to watching them be kids again."

In 1998, this nurse discovered an ability for fund-raising—she and a fellow volunteer established a charity called the Starfish Foundation. The children's home lives are overshadowed by drugs, gangs, violence, poverty, illness, and physical handicaps. "We felt it wasn't fair to send these children back to the horrible circumstances that they came to us from until the following summer," Last says. So far, the foundation has raised $20,000, which is used not only to help families afford the camp, but to extend their care throughout the year in the form of hospital visits, gifts, and outings.

And last but not least, this alum takes a group of sick children and their families to the cathedral at Lourdes, France every year.

When she's home in Massachusetts, Last works as a per diem pediatric and adolescent psychology nurse to earn money for more volunteer expeditions.

The question is, when did she have time to learn to ski?