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CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. Building a home is a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive process, but next week Croton teens will do just that when they go to Nicaragua. A group of teens belonging to Croton Bridges to Community will travel to Nicaragua to build two homes for two families in nine days.
Its an awakening, for many of them its the first time experiencing extreme poverty, and I think what they find is the people that they meet arent that different than themselves, said Bridges to Community Executive Director Kevin Mestrich. The non-profit is based in Ossining. The biggest revelation is that the way they might live in Westchester is not the way most people live. Most people struggle for simple, basic needs, he said.
For the last few years, Croton Bridges to Community, a group composed of Croton-Harmon High School students, can be found washing cars and delivering lunches to Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School to raise money for its trip to Latin America.
The group raises close to $20,000 each year to travel abroad and help build a cinder block house for a Nicaraguan family, according to Denise Weale, who is involved in the fundraising. Each cinder block house costs about $3,500, and each students program fees are about $1,295.
Acknowledging that the cost of one house is a little less than one-sixth of the total money raised by the students, former Croton Bridges to Community participant Audrey Huigens responds that the program's value is not found in just the houses.
You need the manpower, you need the people going down, and also our last trip there, just the conversations. We spoke to the security guard and his sons about different attitudes about birth control, and theres so much cultural exchange that wouldnt happen otherwise and can be really valuable, she said.
Huigens said that there was no single moment when she realized she was a sheltered kid from Croton but that reflecting on the experience brought the revelation. It was just everything, when we were lying in bed at night, and how sore my body was and how much work I put in, and I was only helping one family, she said.
One of the groups biggest donors this year was Grouchy Gabes sandwich shop. Gabes hosted a dinner which helped raise more than $1,100. More fundraising takes place online, through the First Giving website.
Ours is really an awakening time for youth, and many of the youth go on to pursue careers in social justice and improvement in the lives of people in their home country, said Mestrich.
Huigens, who now attends Beloit College in Wisconsin, will travel to Arizona this summer to help with people who are dying on the path to immigration.
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