Cascante 1

Diego Cascante Ramirez 10th grade

Mrs. Susan Koberg
Service Learing Reflection 2016
Angel Gift Campaign: Puerto Viejo and HNN
This year for service learning I did something I do every year but dont seem to
understand fully. From like the forth grade on we would get these angels that would have
sometimes a name, sometimes just their gender and age. Later on once I got into Middle School I
would sometimes go and wrap gifts during lunch but I really didnt think of it as doing
community service. I would wrap the gifts, then I pasted the angel card on the box and then I
placed it on the box that had the name of the organization. That was it. Never knew what would
happen then or to whom was the gift given to.
This year I got a bit closer to the project. I would come in during lunch wrap some gifts.
During classes were we werent doing much I would come in and start wrapping. Later on I
passed to checking gifts off in the master list. That can be both stressful, hectic and a complete
mess. But most importantly its a huge responsibility. When you highlight that name, youre
actually saying that, he or she will be receiving a gift for Christmas. And sometimes the names
themselves are a challenge. But also the logistics involved with getting those packages out.
I didn't know much about all the hard work that comes in with doing service leading. It's
truly a combination of people that make this happen. Last semester during December, teacher
Vicky, my 6th grade Spanish teacher and my chaperon on my Peru-Inca educational trip and
Mexico-Yucatan trip invited me to come and deliver the gifts to the children of Puerto Viejo in
Limon. Limon is known to be one of the poorest areas of Costa Rica. Puerto Viejo is located at

Cascante 2
the south of Limon and is one of the Caribbean' main tourism hotspot filled with tourists and
reggae and rasta vibes.
After an exhausting almost 3 hour car ride I made it to Puerto Viejo, shortly after Teacher
Vicky and her on made it and their car was packed, you could only see them in the front seats
and behind them were hundreds of red and green packages ready to be delivered. But we won't
just give out gifts and leave, we had to through a Christmas party. So under a drizzle me and the
other students started painting nails while some of the kids played soccer nearby. Let me start by
saying that painting nails is hard especially when the girls are exited to paint. After painting tons
of nails we headed to lunch for a typical Caribbean mixture of flavors starting with a ceviche and
ending with very fresh fish.
The party continued as also the kids were served lunch and they brought a clown to put
on a show for them. They looked happy, entertained and in the Christmas mood. Those are the
moments you get into the Christmas spirit. That joy that comes every holiday season that you do
the little things. I love Christmas and I think its the perfect time to think of others while happily
listening to carols. After that came the most exciting part for the kids but the busiest for us. The
gift delivery. We parked the car just in front of the beach where hundreds of boys and girls
awaited for their name to be called. When we opened that trunk let's just say that you could only
see gifts and gifts. One by one or rather scream by scream since there was no microphone and
you had to scream the name of the angel in the gift, we headed easily over 300 gifts. The children
were overflowing with happiness some were told by their payments to wait to December 25 or
Christmas but some could not resist and opened the boxes wrapped with red, white and green
designs right there and started to play with them. You could see this was the first time someone

Cascante 3
from outside the community had gave the kids not just gifts but also a celebration, a bonding
moment and that was truly gratifying.
After that gift delivery I decided that I wanted to contribute more to the project and do
this as my 20 hours of community service so I got in contact with the same people I world with
in Limon and they told I child help with the delivery for the Hospital Nacional de Nios in San
Jose centro.
One of the weekends of December I headed to school where I would find everyone with
worried faces. We had the giant boxes of gifts but no one to take them there. The truck we hired
had still not shown up. After lots of phone calls the truck made it. After loading the truck with
amazing Tetris skills we were off to San Jose. Let's just say upon arrival there was no space to
park the trick and unload. After some negotiations with the security guards we were able to
unload the gifts. The next challenge was to find were to put them and in a hospital that big we
didn't know were to go. Surprisingly close to the laundery room is what they like to call the play
room it's a room filled up with toys and places to study almost like our pre school classrooms.
The thing, there were no children. It's the hospitals policy not to allow visitors inside the patient
floors and we weren't able to through them a party as we did with the Limon children. What we
then did is started to unpack the gifts and place them in different tables, separated by gender and
age, that way it would be easier for the employees to hand out gifts. Let's just say that unloading
them was as difficult as loading them at school. Most of the boxes were completely full of gifts
so it took us almost two hours to unload the whole set up. I even had to provide a hand to some
gifts whose wrapping was torn by the travels. After a phone call we were able to deliver gifts, but
to the moms of the kids who were at the hospital. It was no easy chore since we gave a ball to a

Cascante 4
kid that was in the orthopedic ward with a broken leg. That was quickly corrected but it did stop
our hearts from the embarrassment.
Overall this was the most satisfactory service learning I've ever done. And I look forward
to doing IB CAS since they told me it's an eye opener and you really get to change your life, as
well as yours.