Expecting the Unexpected

"I'm so excited to be going back," said senior Katie Heil when she made a speech at the lock-in.

Seniors Allie Healy and Ian Gilchriest, who also gave speeches at the lock-in, are excited about returning. The three seniors thanked everyone who attended the lock-in and for their contributions of medical supplies.

In one week, Heil, Healy, and Gilchrist, along with other students from Jamesville-DeWitt High School, will travel with Holy Cross Church and Young Life to El Salvador. There the students will spend a week volunteering and participating in a medical clinic and building a second school in the community, Rancho Grande.

Juniors Kaitlyn Murphy, Lilly Rizzo and Emma Whelan all agree that playing with the children is what they are excited for.

Juniors and seniors going to El Salvador have each raised $1,350 to pay for their trip during February break.
In order to earn money, the students send out letters to family and friends asking for donations. In the letters they included the fact that they will be helping the less fortunate. Andrea Jacobs, youth director at Holy Cross Church, says that the letters usually bring in the most money for the trip, all together around $75,000.

Those going on the trip have also taken action individually. Rizzo made speeches at Holy Cross Church asking for donations. She says she knows that people in the church community are very generous, and if they knew her cause, they would donate money or supplies. When Murphy got paid for babysitting, she informed the parents where her money was going and she said they sometimes donated more.

Together, the students held a lock-in on Jan. 16, which students from all over the county attended. Students arrived between 10 and 11 p.m. When we arrived there were friends greeting each other and music blasting. We went over to the raffle table to exchange our entry ticket for a raffle ticket. We both also received extra raffle tickets for bringing in medical and school supplies.

As we walked around to see what was available we saw people playing basketball, "Dance Dance Revolution," and playing on a blow up bungee machine.

To get everyone acquainted with one another there was an icebreaker activity called "Assassins." Every person was handed a spoon and an index card with the name of somebody else in attendance. Our task was to go around and poke the person whose name was on our index card. Once you poked your person, you collected their index cards with the names of other people they poked. Once you got poked, you were out. The winner was the person with the most index cards by 3 a.m.

We were both poked right away so we didn't get a chance to really participate in the activity, but it was entertaining to watch others run around frantically trying to chase their person.

At 3 a.m. we were called into the dance room along with everyone else to watch a video about Holy Cross Church's youth group "FHC," a video about Young Life camp, and then a raffle. The raffle prizes were a variety of things from gift cards and clothing all the way to iPods and digital cameras. Throughout the night/morning there were adult supervisors manning the doors to make sure that no one came in our got out. We finally left between 5-6 a.m.

Learning about the culture in El Salvador was another part of preparing. Murphy says that learning about the culture is one of the largest and most important aspects of the meetings. Students learned various things about the culture like the food, music, and traditions.

The group met at Holy Cross Church to discuss fund raising, what to pack, and culture. They met every couple of weeks for the first few meetings, and once it got closer to the actually trip, they started meeting once a week.