Profile: Elisabeth Clymer
Elisabeth Clymer sends bed nets to Africa so children won't die of malaria.
"We are United Methodists and this is what we have been called to do. We save lives now."
A civics project changed the way Elisabeth Clymer viewed the world and led her life.
“In eighth grade for my civics project, my teacher gave us a Take Action Project,” says 14-year-old Clymer. “The goal of that project was to find a problem in the world to fix and go after it.”
She decided to focus on malaria prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, unaware that her church and her denomination were playing a major role in a global campaign to eliminate malaria.
 Research on malaria led her to the Nothing But Nets campaign to buy insecticide-treated bed nets for children in Africa.
“When I first started researching malaria, I learned of the effects that it had, particularly on children and how many children die every day, every minute—not to mention every year—and those kids are just 5 and younger. And that part really bothered me because I’m 14.
“The fact that so many kids die … that just went straight to my heart and I consciously could not keep going and living life, you know, having fun the way I do, without doing something about it. I just felt compelled … I felt like I had an obligation not only to myself, but to God and to others.”
As a member of Messiah United Methodist Church in Springfield, Va., she was “thrilled” to learn The United Methodist Church was a founding partner of the Nothing But Nets campaign.
“And so I figured what’s more perfect … I am United Methodist and I can help. And so I put the two together. And now I’ve started a great campaign at Messiah.”
She introduced the idea to the youth at Messiah and got a lot of positive feedback. “We were making jokes about swatting people with fly swatters and came up with the idea of a Messiah United Methodist Swat Team.”
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8-month-old Domingos Antonic died not long after this picture was taken. Malaria
and poverty killed him. A $10 mosquito
net might have saved his life.
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Her idea was to ask people to save their spare change every week and donate the money to Nickels for Nets.
“The little kids at Vacation Bible School this past summer—just one week, kids you know 6th grade and under—they raised over $600 just from a few days of bringing in spare change.”
Her minister, the Rev. Ralph W. Rowley, said the teen has found a way to make a difference in the world. “She wasted no time helping to energize our church around this. This began as a youth emphasis in some ways, but has spread beyond the youth and now involves our whole church family. It’s exciting to see how this began with a vision of a single person in our congregation, a young person, and has spread to our entire congregation.”
The motto at Messiah is "Serve God by Serving Others," Clymer points out.
“When a disease causes poverty and kills children, it’s time for more people to take action.”
If you'd like to save lives by preventing malaria through the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, donate here.
The following people contributed to this Profile:
Audio story by Mike Hickcox; print story by Kathy Gilbert; videography by Donnie Schoenmann, DES Video Productions.
UMC.org Profiles are produced by Pam Price, 615-742-5405.
Elisabeth's Spiritual Gifts
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Elisabeth's Recommended Resources
Nothing But Nets - Send a net. Save a life.
Nothing But Nets Campaign
Elisabeth's Nothing But Nets video
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