Service Learning students aid Mexican families

For the past five years, students from the Scottsdale Unified School District’s Service Learning Program head south to Mexico to help those who are less fortunate than they are.

This year more than 150 Service Learning students will assist in the Agua Prieta exchange. This weekend 13 students from Chaparral and Saguaro high schools will spend one day in Agua Prieta building three cement block structures for families to replace the cardboard shelters they are currently living in. Selected families assist in the construction of their new shelters. Some of the students gained experience from previous trips, but most learn on the job.

“The students go to make a difference and to help give a greater sense of pride to the families that we work with,” said John Baird, director of Service Learning and Community Schools. “The students leave with a great sense of accomplishment because they can see where the project started with no walls and when they leave the families have a real home to live in.”

In the past, the Service Learning students have gone to orphanages, schools and the barrios. They helped distribute community supplies, as well as working at the La Divina Provincial in Rancho Feliz Mission at Agua Prieta, Mexico where the students and their chaperones stay. They have helped with the building, grounds maintenance, working with and providing for the young girls and senior citizens who live in the compound. The students also built walls for houses, poured concrete foundations, dug trenches, installed plumbing for future use, taken donations of food clothing personal hygiene products, painted schools and worked with students from the Mexican schools.

“Our students often take for granted all that they have. This trip is very humbling for them. They gain an appreciation for all that they have and are much more aware of how the rest of the world lives,” said Jennie Blomquist, Service Learning teacher at Chaparral High School. “Many of the students think this is the best trip we take since they can actually see how much the time and effort they put in helps the people there,” she added.

Service Learning students from Arcadia, Chaparral, Coronado, Desert Mountain and Saguaro will be assisting families in Mexico fives times this school year.

# # #