Donahue Academy Students Spend Spring Break Helping Poor in Nicaragua

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Published on Tuesday, 18 March 2014 15:47

Spring break for high school students often involves a lot of relaxation. But 20 students at the Donahue Academy in Ave Maria spent their spring break on a mission trip to Nicaragua, spending their days digging ditches, repairing concrete pathways and helping out in other ways at an orphanage for abandoned and abused boys.

"The boys had no running water in their bathrooms or drinking fountain, so we spent several days digging several hundred feet of ditches for plumbing to be installed," said Sister Teresa Benedicta, who led the mission trip. "We also repainted their soccer court, cleaned, played and prayed with the boys," she said, adding that the Donahue students also painted a mural of the prodigal son for a Catholic mission center. Pictured above right, Francis Leung, Joan Cheffers and Jenny Rivera digging a ditch for pipes to be installed)

For 10th grader CJ Smith, it was his second trip to Nicaragua, and he found that different things stood out for him this time.

The first trip, he said he especially noticed the children, how, although they "were in poverty, having nothing, and yet they were smiling, joyful and happier than many people in the U.S. who have so much," and he said he came away with the belief that material things, "that the commercials tell us we need...none of it will make us truly happy." (Left, Mary Buzzanca with Raphael)

This year, he said, the children had the same impression on him, but he came away with a different message from the people he saw working with the poor.

"I saw it in Paul Rush, who gave up his lucrative life in the U.S. to do manual labor building a Guadalupe Gardens Mission Center. I saw it in the workmen and plumbers who helped us paint and dig trenches for the orphans and did these sorts of jobs every day for a living. This trip, I saw happiness despite poverty in the workers, who worked so hard for the little they had and never let a smile fall off their faces. I realized that many people will work hard to make a living but it is not what they do that makes them happy, it is who they are working for and who they are helping by their work. I have walked away from my most recent trip with this message engraved in my heart which will come alive for me whenever I do a job for someone else or when someone else does a job for another person. I hope that in next year's trip and in all of them after that, I will come back with something new to stay with me for the rest of my life."

(Above right, Sr. Teresa Benedicta with students cleaning the main drinking fountain at the orphanage, and preparing it for plumbing and running water. Students: Alicia Bucherri, Francis Leung, Jenny Rivera, Jack Moore, Ann Guernsey, Cale Schneider, Claire Buzzanca, Joan Cheffers, Emilee Fournier, Michaela Cheffers and mary Buzzanca)

Sr. Teresa Benedicta said she also wanted to express appreciation to many Ave Maria residents, "who helped make this trip possible and donated clothes for us to bring down to the people in Nicaragua. The children were so excited when they got a new outfit from us or when we gave them bracelets made by the K-6th graders at the Academy." Students pictures left with mural: Louis Raiger, Michaela Cheffers, Francis Leung and Joan Cheffers. At right is Ben Houde, an AMU student to accompanied the Donahue students on the trip. Below, a group picture.