From July 1-8, 2016, the Random Acts team and 13 volunteers who each raised $5,000, plus a lucky raffle winner, traveled to San Juan del Sur again — some for the second time — to see the progress made at the Free High School campus and to pitch in on the work at the new campus as well as one of the rural communities. We reconnected with students and teachers we’d previously met and made new friends as well.
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The Free High School Volunteers and students of the Free High School reconnecting and making new friends. -
New Free High School Campus We were amazed to see how much progress had been made in the eight months since we were last there. -
Rural Community: Playa Coco One volunteer brought art supplies for the kids and we spent time drawing and coloring with them. -
Barrio Planta Project Dancing lessons with the BPP kids!
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Once again we visited the Free High School during their classes on Saturday, and after a welcoming ceremony during which we met with the founder, Rosa Elena, along with other staff, we sat in on some classes with the students. A few of them remembered specific volunteers from the previous trip, and were able to communicate more this time with their better English (and our volunteers’ better Spanish).
Meeting the students and seeing how strong their drive to get an education is always inspires us and our volunteers to work harder at fundraising. All of the staff at Random Acts couldn’t be prouder of both the students of the Free High School and our fundraisers who are giving their school a home.
Learn More About the FHS -
New Free High School Campus
Austin Drill, the general contractor, met our group upon arrival at the new campus site, where a beautiful and nearly-completed building now stood. Only eight months ago there was only some foundation and one story worth of columns with a temporary roof, but now the building stood tall and beautiful at two stories. We spent some time getting a tour and just taking it all in (or trying to stop crying, in the case of several volunteers).
Over the next week we were able to return a few times to do some construction work alongside Austin’s crew, which is always a rewarding experience. We even got to collectively choose what colors they would paint the building in.
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This year we visited a community by a remote beach called Playa Coco and once again helped them build EcoStoves for their homes so that the women and children would no longer have to inhale black cooking smoke every day, which causes a variety of potentially fatal diseases. One of the volunteers brought art supplies for the kids which was thrilling for them and also let us have a lot of fun drawing and coloring with them.
Learn More About the Impact of These Rural Community Projects -
Our previous trip in November of 2015 inspired one of our volunteers to move to San Juan del Sur and teach English at the BPP. During this trip we visited them again and spent some hours doing various activities with them and even getting some dance lessons. The visit ended with a hilarious piñata game, candy all over the floor, and a big happy mess of kids fighting over it.
Learn More About BPP