Today was the Lord's Day of Rest for Stella Maris (the convent where we are staying) but not for the JASY team! We woke up and had breakfast as a team and quickly headed over to church! It was a little different for us Presbyterians, but we got the hang of the ups and downs of the Catholic church service pretty well! Thankfully we had our friends from St. John Fisher to help us out! After a beautiful service, we went back to our living quarters and got ready for UTech!
At UTech we unloaded all of our JASY supplies and got ready for camp! Camp set up involved blowing up balls, putting camper bags together, organizing venues, and planning activities for the week! We met up with our Jamaican volunteers and had a fun lunch together!
Abby Howard told us a little bit about how she was feeling today! "Today setting up for JASY was tiring but it was so great to get back to the groove of things and for our team to work together and accomplish a goal. Seeing familiar faces from two years ago was really great as well and has gotten me even more excited to get started tomorrow. While I think everyone is a little nervous, we cannot wait to see all of our JASY campers tomorrow morning and kick off the most rewarding week of the year!"
After we finished up at UTech, we made our way back to Riverton! It was the graduation day of the children we had gone to the zoo with the day before. We were so excited to go and congratulate them! Maggie Murray spoke to us a little bit about that experience, "It was so cool to see how excited everyone was about the graduation. All of the parents were dressed up in prom dresses and dress pants. You could tell that they were all so proud of their children!" Maggie is also excited to be starting camp tomorrow in the Swimming Venue. She said it is the perfect place for her!
The kids looked so cute! We were able to do something really special for them this year. We raised enough money as a group to donate groceries to the families of the graduates. Wegmans donated grocery bags for us to give the groceries in! This was such a beautiful gift for us to give the families who struggle to feed these children. We also recieved toys and school supplies from a class in Buffalo, NY which we were able to gift to each of the graduates! Thank you so much for our donation! Finally, we presented the families with dresses that will help keep their daughters safe! Thank you so much Dress A Girl Around the World!
We had such a great day getting ready for camp and celebrating the youngest children of Riverton's education! Education in Jamaica is a cherished thing, and we definitely were able to see that today! It makes each of us thankful for the gift of education that we all have been given. Wish us luck on our first day of JASY camp tomorrow and look forward to reading about how it went! See ya lata mon!