Adios! by Schuyler Welch

Today was the final day demonstrating the power of giving in the DR. We started on another house with no floors, no electricity, and way too many kids for the size of the house. As we arrived at 9 am the notoriously hard Dominican workers had been going on the job for quite some time. We jumped right in, doing what we could to help out with mixing concrete, picking up trash, and giving care packages filled with hygiene products. The entire time I couldn’t help but to wonder how the Dominican workers felt about us and after many hours of contemplating their feelings I decided they might not like Americans in general but they couldn’t help but to have respect for a group that would pay thousands of dollars just to come down and help people they don’t even know. After our lunch break we went back out to work for the last couple hours of the trip. The mood was a lot less intense because we only had to put down the already mixed concrete. Emotions started to swell when our group and the Dominicans realized that this would be the last couple hours we would spend together. More gifts were given back and forth and even more pictures were taken. I will never forget those last hours and how so many emotions were shown by both groups for one another after just knowing each other for a couple of days. The power of giving truly does work in magical ways and it is incredible how much change you can bring to a community if you give.