At two o’clock in the morning on June 20, Señor Greg Frey, Mr. Steve Frey, Ms. Meagan Carlevato, and Mrs. Rose Sterr met fifteen students at Benet. From there, the group took a bus to the airport and boarded a plane bound for Houston. After a two hour flight, the teachers and students grabbed a quick meal and boarded a second plane- this time to Guatemala City. As if that amount of transportation was not enough, the Benet group then drove to Antigua, where they lived with families in seven different houses for the duration of their ten day service trip.

For four of the ten days spent in Guatemala, the group built houses in the poor village of San Lorenzo. Without the use of any electric tools, the Benet volunteers built four single family homes. Add that to the three that were built the year before, and that makes a grand total of seven newly housed families. Sr. Frey said his favorite part of the trip was “seeing the family that we helped last year and getting to reconnect with them.” The work that is done truly impacts the community of San Lorenzo.

Although the main goal of the service trip is building the houses, the students are also completely immersed in Guatemalan culture. This trip was open to rising seniors and recently graduated seniors so they could utilize at least three years of Spanish class in an outside-the-classroom environment. However, in order to attend the trip, a student is not required to take Spanish. On the days that were not spent building houses, the students and teachers went zip-lining, volunteered at an orphanage, served a hot meal to forty-four families at a garbage dump, and climbed a mountain.

Anna Brown, a rising senior, cited the last day of the trip as her favorite part. “After finishing the house we prayed with the family and got cards from the kids. It was really cute,” she said. When asked if she would go again if given the opportunity, “yes” was her response. It seems that Anna is not alone in loving the service opportunity. Patrick Cleary attended the trip after both his junior and senior years at Benet. Plus, Sr. Frey and Mr. Frey attended the trip both years. It seems that they, along with many others, have fallen in love with the Guatemalan culture and people.