Two weeks ago, my IMPACT club in Nuevo Horizonte carried out its first community-service project. I felt as proud and relieved as I imagine a parent with a problem student is to see their child graduate from high school. I mean, we have been meeting as a club since May 2014, and finally in November 2015 we completed one of the main goals of an IMPACT club.
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| Pulling weeds and picking up garbage in the neighborhood Nuevo Horizonte |
Not only did we complete the project, but we pulled it off with great success. Local business owners donated garbage sacks to collect the weeds and garbage we picked up as well as a snack in the late morning when we were all getting tired and thirsty.
Some of us started at 9 am, and we finished around noon. The goal was to chop down all the weeds that had grown during the rainy season, and we picked up all the garbage. Near our IMPACT meeting spot there is an empty area, and no one really maintains it. We decided to clean up our area as a first step.
Not all the members of the club participated, and not all the participants were club members. But some of the guys who helped chop weeds with a machete have been coming to meetings more now. And I think it gained us props and recognition in the community.
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| There were 12 sacks by the time we finished! |
In order to celebrate and evaluate the project, I invited the entire group to my house for dinner this past Monday. It was a little stressful to decide what to make for a bunch of Nicaraguans, especially guys who can eat a lot. I ended up serving rice, boiled beans, sausages, the Dutch dish of mashed potatoes and carrots, and a tomato salad. Plus cookies and ice cream for dessert. So we muddled our way through a discussion about the weak points in the project, what we want to improve, what we liked about our work, and what we want to do next. I took it as a good sign that one of the critiques was that we only cleaned one street of the three in the neighborhood, and no one seemed to object to the idea of cleaning the other two streets for the next steps.
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| Great teamwork with someone holding a sack and others shoving refuse into it |
When it came time to eat, the two teenage girls (the youngest members of our club at 15) and another leader, Clarisa, helped me serve plates. We ran out of rice, and I had to make more sausages last minute, but it worked out pretty well. The only thing lacking was tortillas, which I forgot to buy. Oh well. The girls served the plates to the boys, and they poured juice too. There was some joke about the girls spilling juice all over the guys, and I never figured out what really happened.
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| The girls, who bring a lot of energy to our group's meetings, and helped serve |
In the midst of the boys were teasing the girls so much about being poor hostesses and whether or not there was dessert, I told them they were welcome to wash dishes. Much to my surprise, they started in. So my kitchen was full of 5 young men washing dishes, teasing and hitting each other. One of them started running the mop. I had taken off my socks and shoes earlier that day and forgotten to pick them up from their corner in the kitchen, and the "maid" almost threw them out for me. We were all laughing a lot at their shenanigans.
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| Having help with the dishes was great! |
That's when I realized why I am still in IMPACT. That night we had discussed the sense of accomplishment we felt after finally finishing a project. The other leader, Trinidad, and I shared that it had been a hard road. I told the kids that many times I was ready to give up because there was only one person at meetings, but Trinidad fought to stick with it. Now we have a group of 14 regulars, and we are so thankful for them. Not for youth in general, but for Marcos and Toto and Gloria and all the others who make up my IMPACT club. They teach me what it means to prepare a table for people. Trinidad has taught me what it means to persevere and keep that table available even when it seems like no one will ever come over to eat dinner.
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| Trinidad, the founder and champion of our IMPACT club |
Monday night I literally prepared a table, but I hope that it was just a small part of opening my heart, home, and life to these youth - and being an example to them of what it means to live generously with others so that they too learn how to set the table and receive others with open arms.
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| We turned our usual IMPACT meeting bench into an impromptu table for lunch after our work project |
