Pam has left an indelible mark on the lives of countless of the most impoverished women and children of India,” shared the Center's Founder, Don Messer. “In her seventeen self-financed trips to India, she developed close personal relationships with persons who are the most marginalized in the world, due to a combination of caste, gender, and HIV.”

As a result of these experiences, Pam led the Center to 1) create a care and support program for 28 HIV-positive women, 2) provide backpacks for 350 elementary Dalit school children, 3) initiate alternative income generating projects for HIV-positive women and homosexual men, 4) support tutors for 400 Dalit girls, 5) help five girls go on to college, and 6) repair mud and thatched huts damaged by monsoons. “Wherever I go,” reports Messer, “people stream out of their mud huts with pictures of Pam, expressing their gratitude for the help, health, and hope she has initiated.” Merrill believes that “education is truly the path out of poverty,” and her relentless advocacy and generous support has transformed life for the poorest of the poor.