Kathy Headlee is the founder of Mothers Without Borders and a mother of five children. She adopted her youngest daughter from an orphanage in Romania in 1996. Kathy has been involved with relief and community service work for more than fifteen years. Her work has included volunteer expeditions to orphanages and communities throughout the world. It was during her work in the orphanages of Romania that Kathy was confronted with the devastating results of children raised without nurturing, without encouragement from caring adults, without hope. As she communicated the needs of these children to others, men and women around the world responded by offering their time, talents and resources to alleviate the suffering of these often forgotten children, and Mothers Without Borders was created. Mothers Without Borders was officially formed as a 501 (c) 3 corporation in 2000, after more than ten years of work with orphaned and vulnerable children. The organization works in partnership with local, community-based organizations allowing it to utilize the talents and experience of local volunteers who know the solutions to the problems they face, but often lack the resources to implement them. They value local wisdom, and only participate in projects that are initiated at the village level.