From the Dominican Republic, with love and memories – MPNnow.com

Bloomfield High School students share experiences on service trip

BLOOMFIELD Sometimes, you have to journey really far away to understand what you have in your own backyard, according to Bloomfield school counselor and adviser Felice Prindle.

More than 20 students in Bloomfields High Schools International Baccalaureate Creativity, Activity and Service program are back from a service trip to the Dominican Republic, funded in part through community events and fundraisers and taken in December and early January.

And they have had the chance to reflect on what some are calling a visit that has changed them and how they look at life back home.

The students helped poor sugar cane workers in what are known as bateyes, which are settlements and homes for people originally from Haiti who face discrimination and other hardships in their new country. The Bloomfield students traveled to the same area of the country as other Bloomfield students did in 2017.

This project is like taking a journey and recognizing a community and an entire group of people that have been marginalized and forgotten, said Prindle, who organized this and previous service trips.

The students, through the Monte Cocoa Housing Initiative, helped install floors in homes and build latrines for the community. They also worked to improve access to running water as well as serving as teachers for children ranging from as young as 3 to those older than they are.

And the Bloomfield visitors also proved to be apt students as well.

For Marissa Giglia, her definition of wealth changed, particularly traveling from what she calls a largely materialistic society here to find something she and the others who accompanied her on the trip didnt expect to find.

Yes, the workers would go into the sugar cane fields everyday, some working from 3 a.m. to 8 p.m., cutting down sugar cane with a machete, row by row, all day long. All that for $2.50 every two weeks, with much of the money going toward clean water.

Yet, everyone was smiling. The people danced a lot. They came up and hugged these complete strangers from Bloomfield, playing baseball or musical chairs with them and doing their hair.

They treated them like family.

I thought, how rich they are in happiness and family, Marissa said. It was really upsetting to see that they had to live this way and they didnt have a choice to live any better way. But they made the best out of their situation, and I guess that was the most amazing part about the trip.

Upon returning from the service trip, many of the students found a renewed sense of purpose in volunteer work they already had been doing.

Take Christian Reyes, who works with the elderly as he strives to someday become a pediatric nurse. Like his traveling companions, he learned how valuable a smile, conversation, companionship and friendship can be to someone, no matter the language barrier.

And he tries to do the same back home.

Its not my job, its my duty to help, Christian said.

Lauren Bell works with one elementary school student twice a week. She realizes the importance of the connections shes made go beyond simply helping the one student but to the entire class.

In the bateyes, she and other students helped install floors and latrines. But being there for the peoplewas just as important, she discovered.

For me, my presence is service, in a way. Being there for them and not necessary to give them something, she said. For me, that classroom is my version of the kids in the Dominican Republic.

Kailee Lewis paid heed to the lessons taught by the Bloomfield students who traveled to this same community two years ago and to Prindle, who encouraged the students to have no regrets when it was time to leave.

If that meant allowing the kids to hug her and shake her hand, she let them. And yes, allowing them to do her hair.

Two little girls wrote her notes, wrapped in bows and a scrunchie. Translated, one of the notes read, I love you, friend. A little boy wrote in Kailees journal, You gave me my heart.

I know Ill never forget that, Kailee said.

Students, who are preparing to share details of the service trip with the Bloomfield Board of Education on Feb. 5, also have been talking with younger students about their experiences.

Were creating a generation who wants to go and serve as well, Lauren said.

The students go not to travel but to serve, Prindle said. And when they return home, they still want to serve and this group is no exception.

Im really proud of them, Prindle said.

In looking back, Marissa said many would think there are so many differences, but instead, the Bloomfield and Dominican Republic kids learned they are very much the same.

I think that was one of the coolest parts, seeing how we find joy in a lot of the same things, Marissa said.

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From the Dominican Republic, with love and memories - MPNnow.com