Aiding kids 'who deserve more than to just survive': Q&A with Jenny Mills

Jenny Mills, a South Portland resident and the executive director of Limitless Child International, travels to India about every four months on behalf of her newly founded children’s charity, which is focused on improving the quality of life for children living in orphanages and impoverished communities. Mills has also begun working with the South Portland School Department to get local children and families involved with her charity. This past school year, for instance, students and staff at Dyer Elementary School partnered with Limitless Child on several projects.

One of those projects was a fundraiser, held at the end of school, which involved a team of students working with Dyer art teacher Margaret Burman to create crayon hearts made from recycled crayon pieces and Lego heart necklaces, which were then sold, raising $450 for Limitless Child.

Mills, who has worked in the public health and international adoption and humanitarian aid fields for more than 20 years, founded Limitless Child last year with her husband, Tom DiFilipo. The couple has one adult daughter and one who will be a freshman at South Portland High in the fall. The household also includes two cats, two parakeets, four chickens, one dog and a fish. Mills added, “If my dreams come true, (we’ll also get) a mini-donkey and if Tom gets his way we’ll be adding a few pigmy goats.”

She and her husband have lived in South Portland for the past 15 years. She has a master’s degree in social work from the University of New England and also trained as a nurse at the University of Maine.

This week she spoke with the Current about Limitless Child and why she founded it.

Q: Can you describe what Limitless Child International does?

A: The goal is help kids living in orphanage care to have a childhood filled with quality play, good health and love and attention. Children like Pranav, who entered an orphanage as a baby and spent 12 years living an isolated existence. Unfortunately, humanitarian aid does not reach children in orphanages, where the they only receive the absolute basics – a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat. Children at orphanages, especially in India, never get a chance to play, to explore or to create. Nor do they learn the skills necessary to live independently or to develop healthy relationships with others. So our hope is to help children like Pranav by providing opportunities to connect to their local community, to develop relationships with caring adults and to have opportunities to be a child and have a happy and thriving childhood.

Limitless Child is donor-funded and is focused on improving the quality of life for children through two major program areas. The first is what we call Make it Matter, which utilizes 3-D printing to provide prosthetic hands to orphanage children at no cost. To do that, we partner with an incredible organization called Impact India.

We are also partnering with an organization called Makers Asylum in Mumbai, India, to bring play, creativity and science, engineering, technology and math education to children in orphanage care via a retrofitted auto rickshaw, which visits on a weekly basis bringing fun, educational activities to the children.

Our second area of work is called Peer Sports and Play. The goal of these programs is to integrate marginalized children into their communities through the creation of community playgrounds and by connecting children with peers through team sports. Our first playground is set for next month in Pune, India. And our first team sports clinics will bring soccer players from South Portland High to team up with young girls in New Delhi.

Q: Why did you start this organization?

A: Because of the hundreds of children I’ve met over the years who deserve more than to just survive. Children like Payal, who passed away at the age of 3 from a lack of nutrition, a lack of someone who truly cared and loved her and invested in her. She deserved to have a full life. Overall, our work is guided by the belief that every child has a right and a need for a thriving childhood, which means being able to explore, to play, to learn, to develop curiosity, to understand their culture and to be part of their local community.

Limitless Child grew out of more than 20 years of involvement in the field of international adoption and child welfare. I have visited orphanages in many countries and learned about the deprivation and marginalization of the children who had no one to advocate for them. It became my personal mission to address these gaps and provide the precious elements of childhood. As a mother myself, I cannot imagine my child living without the gift of childhood. Both Tom and I felt that we were very well positioned to be able to shine a light on these children and bring positive change into their lives.

Q: Do you travel to India often and how do you choose the organizations or children to sponsor/work with?

A: I travel to India every four months and it’s always an adventure, always unique and always an honor to serve some of the most vulnerable children in our world. Choosing organizations and individuals to partner with is one of the most important things we do. Our partners are vetted rigorously, including financial and programmatic transparency and quality of service. They include some of the premier educational, medical and social services organizations in India and the U.S.

Q: What is your ultimate hope for Limitless Child?

A: Our hope is that we can bring experiences and opportunities to children to enrich their lives. These are children are so isolated, even from the very communities their orphanages are located in. Our hope is that we will begin to shift the paradigm of the way aid is delivered to this population and to go beyond programming that simply ensures survivability. We want children in orphanage care or in very impoverished situations to have a quality of life that includes being able to play, to have the freedom and resources to be creative, to make sure that there are positive mentors and adults who care about them and celebrate their lives and encourage them to keep trying new things and keep believing in themselves.

Q: How did you get involved with the South Portland schools

A: Basically, it grew out a long-held desire to introduce students in South Portland with children in India through Skype, letter writing and more. Liz Fowler, principal at Dyer Elementary School, has been amazing to collaborate with and her students have blown us away with their enthusiasm for Limitless Child. I can’t say enough about how supportive Dyer has been in terms of sharing information about how to start a Maker Space, curriculum content, connecting us with great resources within our community and starting a plan to connect the Dyer students with similar aged children in India.

Another super exciting development has been around our Peer Sports and Play programing. We are working with Jeff Selser, a local legend in the South Portland coaching arena, to design a program where local high school students from the city will travel to India with Limitless Child for a week to teach soccer to a group of at-risk girls. The South Portland students will also visit a number of orphanages and have opportunities to see some of the amazing beauty and diversity of India. It’s looking like our first trip will happen in November. This will be an absolute dream come true.

Q: How can regular folks help out?

A: There are so many ways people can get involved, but as with all nonprofits, help with fund raising is our primary need. Our website is one way to learn more about us or just give us a call to discuss opportunities.

A closer look

To find out more about the South Portland-based nonprofit, Limitless Child International, see www.limitlesschildinternational.org.

Jenny Mills of South Portland during one of her many trips to India with her  charity, Limitless Child International.

Creating community playgrounds for children at orphanages is one of the goals of Limitless Child International, which is based in South Portland