Out of all the days during this trip, my final day was by far the most rewarding and inspiring. Today, we helped make an extereme difference for about 130 kids on this island. On Virgin Gorda, there is only one public high school (Bregado Flax). To make matters worse, this school severely lacks funding. As a result, many basic educational necessities, that we as Jesuit students often take for granted, are not provided to the students that attend this school. Unite BVI is a foundation formed by Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, that helps to provide funding and assistantance to the underprivileged in the BVI. For the first time ever, children at this school will be able to use computers and have a library in their school. Unite BVI provided a shipping container to the school that has been converted to a library/computer room. With the help of many today, we completed a final installation of this new facility. We moved quickly today and mixed cement, installed foundation, and performed basic landscaping around the outside of the container. I’m extremely proud of the work that we did as a group today and am greatly looking forward to seeing photos of the children on their first day of school when they see their new library. After this awesome project, we headed to lunch in which I had some of the most delicious quesadillas I’ve ever had in my life. From here we headed back to the cabins and showered before preparing for the presentations of our research projects. My groups presentation went great! I had an awesome time working with Beth, Owen, Connor, and Brennan and I am very glad that our project worked out the way that it did. In our presentation, we discussed how water flows throughout a sponge. Our group believed that smaller sponges would excrete a dye slower then bigger sponges. Our hypothesis was rejected and we found that smaller sponges have quicker water flow and can exceed a dye much faster. After everyone completed their presentations, we went to the Top of the Baths restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious buffet of chicken, veggies, and plantains. Finally, we viewed some photos from the week and gave final thanks to all. This trip was an extremely fulfilling experience and would like to thank everyone involved for providing me this life changing experience.
Today I learned that I am very privileged to be attending a school that has almost any educational want or need provided to myself and my peers. I wish the best for the local children at this school and hope they truly enjoy their new library.
