Page 3 - Knights_Impact_Dominican

Making an Impact SHERON SMITH

Each MGA student, who paid around $800-$900 to Edson Silva, one of the non-traditional age MGA students who made
go on the trip, chose three of all of the available impact the trip, towers above Dominican schoolchildren at one of the English
activities to take part in while the ship was in port. Some tutoring impact activities.
of the choices were:
• Planting tree seedlings to help restore degraded soil SHERON SMITH

in the countryside, which was one of Klingler’s three MGA student Keiah Williams working at RePapel, a co-op run by
picks; Dominican women to create income by making and selling recycled
• Helping Dominican schoolchildren and other locals paper products.
with their English skills, a popular pick among the
students; SHERON SMITH
• Working with a group of Dominican women at their
recycled paper co-op; It wasn’t all work. Here are some of the MGA students at Playa Dorada,
• Upgrading dirt floors in homes with the safer, the region’s most popular beach. Zip-lining, shopping, city tours, a
healthier alternative of concrete; and Caribbean festival and shipboard parties were among the other play
• Making clay filters for families with no access to time activities of MGA students.
piped/potable water.
3
The trip included plenty of play time - beach so-
journs, city tours, shopping, zip-lining and, of course, en-
tertainment of all kinds aboard the ship. Still, why would
a group of university students, ranging in age from 18 to
late 40s, pay to do volunteer work, some of it quite labor
intensive, in a country where nearly 40 percent of the
population is impoverished?

“For me, it’s a broadening of perspective,” said Gar-
rett Stone, 23, a psychology major from Macon, sitting
on the pool deck the morning after the Adonia set sail. “I
couldn’t imagine what it’s like to live anywhere else or be
anyone else. This is definitely one of my biggest paradigm
shifts. I hope to gain an appreciation for what I have, like
the chance to get a college education or just to sleep in a
clean bed. It’ll be an experiment to see how little I really
need.”

One of the impact activities Stone chose was the op-
portunity to work at RePapel, a co-op in a poor province
of Puerto Plata run by a group of women to reduce waste
and create income by recycling paper.

He was joined by at least eight other MGA students,
who were greeted in joyous song by the women of the co-
op, located in a dense neighborhood of homes and small
businesses.

Rotating through various work stations, the students
helped tear used white paper into bits, which the women
of RePapel washed and pulverized in blenders. Students
also helped them spread the pulpy mass onto sifting trays
and set them on shelves so the product could dry. The
eventual end result is recycled paper sheets that look and
feel like parchment and are turned into notepads and
greeting cards.

At another station, students wrapped thin strips of
colorful magazine paper around long toothpick-like sticks