Hi Y'all!! Today the group was divided into three different groups: The Clean Up Crew, The Painters, and The Scrapers."The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the main who will win. " Roger Bannister This is the perfect quote to describe the effort, determination, and progress from the kids today.
The Clean Up Crew was to clean out an empty a lot full of dead trees, high weeds, overgrown grass, bushes, and leftover debris. Standing in front of the lot the kids questioned, "Wait, we have to clean out this whole lot?" With a reply of "Yes!" we were on our way to making a remarkable change. A task that would make anyone feel defeated before attempting, beared no competition to our kids. (picture coming soon) They worked all day in direct sunlight, pulling weeds, taking down trees, snip here, snip there. The difference from what was there when we started to what is now there is unbelievable. The Pastor, from the church next door, said "This is absolutely amazing. I am so grateful for this. We want to expand our church and are trying to buy this land. Cleaning this lot out has greatly helped us." The woman behind our lot came out multiple times grateful of our hard work. "I really appreciate what y'all are doing out here, it's really great. I have tried to clean out my yard where the lot has overgrown into and I just could not keep up. It's my birthday next week, will you get together for a picture?" The kids posed for the picture as she continuing to praise us with gratefulness.
The Painters were to continue painting and replacing boards on Dwights house. After a small mishap with the wrong paint color being bought the kids were very determined and excited to continue their work. Dwight was the first reciever of our services, which made the kids more determined to finish what they had started. The leadership shown in this group was absolutely amazing. Each kid knew what he/she had to do and got right to work.
The Scrapers were go getters, as their task was to chip away all weathered paint off of a house in order to prep it for its new paint job. Given this task, the kids surpassed the goal of the day as they scraped all of the paint off the house, primed it, and began painting!!This group took great pride in their work and it really showed through their progress.
To see the kids in this environment, taking leadership roles, working together, and pushing each other has really shown the outcome of true teamwork. As I walked around helping the students and directing them in areas of help, I find myself more motivated to continue working and pushing through my times of weakness. The kids not only need us to help them, but we need them to help us, and I am so thankful to have been a part of this group. Each and every kid has something great to offer and it has really shown.
Thanks for reading! Be proud of your children and the people they are developing into! Stay tuned for our last day of work! Samantha
Imagine if every middle school and high school in America just did what you did TODAY? These neighborhoods would all be made over!
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing job you all did! You should be incredibly proud of yourselves. You truly experienced the meaning of hard work and realized the outcome of it. So glad that you had the opportunity for some downtime and fun the other day. I'm sure being able to take in the sights, sounds, tastes, and culture of New Orleans helped make this trip complete. What an impressive bunch of kids you all are and such inspirational teachers! Thank you Ray for your vision and all you did to make this trip possible for our kids!
ReplyDeleteDave & Wendy
We have been following your posts from a tiny island 5,000 miles away, excitedly reading about your progress every morning. It is so impressive the work you have done and inspires us to work even harder here to preserve a legacy for our children and make the island a better place for those who live here year-round. We have shared the blog with the local children and they loved seeing the pictures. We read it out loud together and translate for the younger children whose English is not as strong yet as the older ones. They love to hear what the "great teacher" is writing and are amazed at what a difference kids can make. In fact, they are so inspired that they all got together yesterday and began cleaning out a vacant lot and then we took a boat ride to the mainland to buy supplies to continue the work and help beautify the island, "just like their American friends". You can never truly know the impact you, as individuals and a group are making by your actions, your selfless donation of time, effort, and compassion. We are sure you will return to New Milford changed by the privilege of this experience and you should be proud of yourselves and all you have accomplished! We wish you a safe trip home and a terrific summer!
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