Henry's Reaction

The Bonner Trip to Puerto Rico was an interesting as well as eye-opening one. Prior to this trip, I had only been to Puerto Rico with family and this trip was an experience through which I experienced an enitirely different side of the island and culture located there. The trip also provided an outlet through which all of the Bonner Leaders were able to bond together. By pushing us outside of our every day comfort zone as well as our weekly service sites, were were able to work with each other in new and challenging evironments that proved extremely valuable learning situations. One of the most rewarding sites for me was the soup kitchen where I was able to interact with many local people and learn first-hand about the demographic of people that eat in these community havens. At the grssroots level, we were able to learn about the education system, the local Red Cross Organization, ad the people by interacting and working with them throughout the San Juan area Over the course of the trip, we made many friends and met people that I definitely plan on keeping in touch with. The trip ultimately offered a side of Puerto Rico that many people never get to see or appreciate. As a result, the group became more and more close knit and open over the course of the trip and now share many experiences and stories of our time in Puerto Rico. I really hope that we have the chance to do another proram similar to this because it allowed us to bond in a new, unique, environment and experience new sides of ourselves and each other.

Day Four: Escuela Superior de Vega Baja

The fourth and final day was spent at . This was by far my favorite day of service. The first part of the day was a cultural exchange among the Bonner Leaders, students in the advanced English course, and members of the Red Cross Youth Council. The day began on a very comic note. Eliane Ortero, the president of the youth council of the Red Cross Youth Council introduced what we would be doing in Spanish and I translated her speech to English. She said “Hola, me llamo Eliane Ortero” and I responded with “Hi, my name is Eliane Ortero”, a direct translation, but obviously not my name. After the laughter died down, the cultural exchange began. Among other things, we compared universities in Puerto Rico with those in the states. Eliane told me that she really wanted to pursue a field in pharmaceuticals, but needed to go to the states for that. One thing that I learned from this open interaction is that, like in Spain, the Puerto Rican students were very shy about speaking English, especially when they discovered that I spoke Spanish. For example, I kept on trying to get Eliane to speak a little English, but after about thirty seconds of it, she would revert back to Spanish. After the cultural exchange, the members of the Red Cross Youth Council took us on a tour of the school. Along the way, we came across a very inspirational poster, which stated"

"Un hombre no envejece cuando se le arruga la piel, sino cuando se arrugan los suenos y esperanzas"

"A man does not grow old when his skin wrinkles, but when his hopes and dreams wrinkle."

Finally, we proceeded to our final task of the day: painting the music room. Although the music instructor did not speak very good English and the room was quite large, we managed to finish painting the majority of the room in only a few hours. After that, we had to say good-bye to our Puerto Rican friends, but hopefully not forever. Minerva's trying to coordinate a NY trip for the members of the Red Cross Youth Council so I keep my fingers crossed.

Day Three: Handing out Comfort Kits and Chatting with Veteran's Hospital Residents

The third day we worked at the Veteran's Hospital. Our responsibility was to provide comfort kits to the veteran’s that included toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and lotion. We were directed around the hospital by some hospital staff that showed us to whom we would hand each comfort kit. Among the veteran's receiving Comfort Kits was Minerva's Step-Father, who barely had the energy to say hi to us.The way most people’s face lit up when they saw a group of young adults taking time to help them is indelible in my memory. An interesting thing about the veteran’s hospital is that they refer to the patients as “residents”. “We want to make them feel as much at home as we possibly can” explained the physical trainer on staff. Since most of the day was spent delivering care packages, we weren't able to speak with the residents for as long as I would have liked. The most memorable quote from the day was delivered from Richard, a man born in New York City, but who decided to spend his later years in San Juan, Puerto Rico because New York City was “way too cold! (obviously he had never visited upstate NY)”. He explained how he lost his leg was blown off in Korea and then said that he didn’t plan on tangoing any time soon; he just wanted to walk again. Hearing him say that so cheerfully almost made me cry. It certainly put my life and my problems in perspective Here we are complaining about how school’s unfair, how it’s too cold, or how unreliable our camera, I-pod, etc. is and in San Juan’s veterans hospital there are many people who just want to walk again.

Day 2: Serving Food and Organizing Clothes at La Fondita de Jesus

The second day entailed a lot more hands on work. We worked at La Fondita de Jesus, a boarding home in Santurce, an impoverished section of San Juan. La Fondita offered many free services to its clients, including room, board, clothing, and even art classes, among other things. People could choose to take as many or few services as they liked. We started the day helping the cooks prepare lunch in the kitchen. Many of the cooks were retirees who wanted to something both beneficial and productive with their lives. I was very impressed by the dedication they had to their volunteer jobs. In the kitchen, we chopped vegetables, un-canned meat, and made sandwiches for later consumption. Then, as the kitchen became crowded, I took two students with me to the clothing drive and helped them organize clothing. This was a very interesting experience. There were at times six of us working in a stuffy room that was no more than 10 ft. by 10 ft, and made much smaller by the presence of rolling closets and huge mountains of clothes. In this room, we were put to work hanging up shirts, folding jeans, shorts, and bathing suits, all the time dealing with dwindling counter space and hangers. However, I got to experience exactly how the clothing drive worked. Each person that wanted to use the clothing drive needed to first sign up, write down their size for everything, and then were then only allowed to take one item of clothing (of the right size) at a time. The idea was that the clothing drive workers would help their clients get on their feet, but it was not meant to be their own personal closet. Finally, at the end of the day, I enjoyed a very long conversation with Juan Baptista in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. This guy was very intelligent, very committed to his job, and later gave us a very intimate tour of both new and old San Juan.

Day 1: Cleaning Vehicles at the Red Cross

The first day, we volunteered at the Red Cross Chapter in San Juan. We spent most of the morning and early afternoon cleaning both emergency and regular vehicles for the Red Cross. Cleaning entailed clearing the vehicles of their content, scrubbing down the inside and outside of the vehicle, cleaning some of the vehicle’s content, before finally storing the vehicle’s content in a more ordered fashion. This was overall not the most exciting day, but it was nice to be able to stand outside for more than ten minutes and not have to worry about catching hypothermia.

First Year Service Trip to Puerto Rico

The Bonner Foundation recommends that first year students participate in a community service trip to an area that is culturally distinct from that in which they work. From January 11 to January 16, I led the Bonner Leaders on a service trip in San Juan, Puerto Rico. When one usually thinks about Puerto Rico, the first things that may come to mind are beautiful luxurious beaches with crystal clear blue water and wide expanses of lush, verdant rainforest. Those were certainly the first thing that came to mind when one of my Bonner Leaders suggested that we do our First Year Service Trip in said location. However, our service trip was certainly not your typical Puerto Rico vacation. Of course, we did spend some time on the beach, but we also saw a side of Puerto Rico that most tourists and even some Boricuas (slang for Puerto Rican) have never seen.
Every year, first year Bonner Leaders are encouraged to embark on a community service trip to an area that is culturally distinct from the area surrounding their university. Our first thoughts were Galveston, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana where, as you may have guessed, we would have provided hurricane relief in both areas. Volunteering at both locations would be performing charitable work in areas very culturally distinct from Utica, NY, and thus, fulfill the requirements of the Bonner Foundation. However, as rewarding as going to either Texas or Louisiana would have been, it seemed as if every community service trip, both at Hamilton College and around the country went to one of those two locations. We, on the other hand, wanted to go somewhere new, somewhere fresh. "Why not Puerto Rico?", somebody suggested. Why not Puerto Rico? It certainly was culturally distinct from upstate NY, more so than Louisiana and Texas, and it turned out that their were plenty of service opportunities as well.
As soon as we decided to go to Puerto Rico, I contacted Jay Starr, the AmeriCorps VISTA worker at the local Red Cross hoping that she would have some contact with the San Juan Red Cross. As it turned out, she had just met the San Juan Red Cross Director of Youth Services, Minerva Aponte de Reyes, at a conference a few months earlier, after which the two became good friends. So, after a long series of correspondence between Minerva and I, she contacted several different agencies around San Juan and found work for us every single day. Simply stated, without Minerva's assistance, this trip would not have been possible.

What is a Bonner Leader?

Bonner Leaders is a two year program at Hamilton College (though we encourage students to stay for four) in which the students develop their civic and leadership skills, knowledge, and values through doing extensive community service at non-profit organizations in Utica, NY as well as participating in weekly training and reflection sessions. The program is split into two groups, the returning and the freshman Bonner Leaders. This blog will focus primarily on the experiences of the six freshman Bonner Leaders. Their names are Stefanie Russell, Henry Edelson, Laura Gilson, Liam Ronan, Yoko O'Hara, and Caroline Pantazis. The sites at which they work include Kernan Elementary School, Donovan Middle School, Thea Bowman House, The Underground Cafe, and the YWCA.