NEW ZEALAND TRIP POST: FTK!

8/30



Sporting the jacket!



When I was packing to leave for New Zealand, I spent a lot of time trying to get everything that was listed on the packing list I received from Habitat for Humanity a few months prior to the trip.  There were several items like work gloves that I had to purchase but other things like sunscreen or work boots that I actually had.  Then there were the items that I could borrow.  I knew that somewhere in my parent’s house was a rain jacket and since I needed one, I called my mom and asked her to look.  The next day I showed up at the house to pick it up and my Penn State THON windbreaker was sitting on a chair waiting for me.  Personally, I never thought I would wear that jacket again but when I put it on this morning, I had no idea how ironic it was that today was the day it was raining and I would wear this particular jacket.



Penn State’s Dance Marathon or THON is a charitable fundraiser devoted to raising money for childhood cancer research and its motto is FTK: FOR THE KIDS.  Now while THON has absolutely nothing to do with my Habitat for Humanity adventure, today it rained so I wore my THON jacket.  It was an awful day to have rain because we were scheduled to take a little walking field trip during lunch.

Down the street from our job site, there was a local elementary school.  We had been promised that at some point over the course of our time in New Zealand that we would visit a school and most of us had been looking forward to it.  When we arrived, we removed our muddy work boots and wet rain gear and left it outside the building. 



Inspirational signs that hang around the grounds of the school.



Once inside the school, we were treated to lunch and a performance by a couple classes of students.  The kids sung two native songs and spent time meeting each of us.  They were so cute as they came up to introduce themselves and ask where we were all from!  We in turn had all donated money to buy them books to be added to their library.

It was a short visit but a very impactful one.  As I put my THON jacket back on before walking back I couldn’t help but think FTK.  I hadn’t really thought of this whole experience in that way before but a lot of what I was doing here was for the kids.  Maybe some of the kids we met today live in the neighborhood where we were working and there were definitely kids moving into the houses that we were building. 

Just like THON is helping fight against childhood cancer in order to give more children the chance to live a normal, healthy life, Habitat is giving children the chance to have a home. It’s gives them the opportunity to have a room to decorate and redecorate as they grow.  It allows them to have a place they will one day refer to as the house they grew up in.  They will play in the back yard, celebrate special occasions over dinner in the kitchen, and watch movies with their parents in the living room.  Overall, today was just another example of the fact that the work I am doing is so much more impactful than I ever could have imagined.

Check out the kids and their preformance for us: