The Waves from Pepperdine’s Buenos Aires program participated in two events that served their communities. One was familiar, the other was a little more muddy.
By Audrey Reed
Overseas Correspondent
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — The childhood story of “The Three Little Pigs” brings together the volunteer efforts at Pepperdine Buenos Aires – houses and pigs. Two service learning projects, The Little Pig Adventure and the Buenos Aires Step Forward Day, are taking place within a week of each other and both have the goal of helping those in need.
The Little Pig Adventure
The group was awarded $3000 from Lilly Grant after writing a proposal to the Board of the Lilly Grant Foundation to build a pigpen at El Hogar, a special type of orphanage whose goal is to teach practical skills to young people.
A group of about 20 students will travel one and a half hours outside Buenos Aires Saturday to build the structure and spend time with the residents there, Student Coordinator Tim Byrne said.
The group plans to build and add one more pen to the current two, build a concrete structure around the pens and provide some feed for the Sophomore Ali Manzano holds a child up in
animals there. the air at the Ciudar la Vida in Argentina.
“After we are done working the first day, we are going to have a bonfire with food we can cook there and have worship with the kids,” Byrne said. “Then the next day (we’ll) have a sunrise worship Sunday morning and work the rest of the day before going home.”
The orphanage takes in children off the street and teaches them practical skills such as raising animals.
“It’s a very regimented farm,” Faculty Advisor Jo Kite said. “The kids do everything. When we went the first time, they were slaughtering a pig and the kids were doing all the work.”
The idea to involve Pepperdine came from Kite when a man at a Bible study spoke about the needs of the orphanage.
“We were talking one night about how to get money for this orphanage,” Kite said. “He had written a grant and barely missed it. I thought that we could use the Lilly Grant to pay for breeding pens.”
Step Forward Day
The other major service-learning project in Buenos Aires this semester was Step Forward Day, which took place Saturday. The event gathered 42 students who broke into groups and traveled to two different locations to paint buildings for the Cuidar la Vida and Hogar de San Martin charitable programs.
“Last year’s group started the tradition in (Buenos Aires) and I thought it was important to continue the tradition this year,” Service Learning Coordinator Seth Allingham said.
While Pepperdine students already volunteer at these two locations on a weekly basis, usually students work directly with people. But on Step Forward Day, students found themselves painting buildings and planting trees.
Cuidar la Vida gives aide to families with young children and Hogar San Martin is an elderly home.
“They were two places they already work with,” Allingham said. “I thought it would be good because students who have not participated in the past to see what we do, and hopefully become interested in it.”
The volunteers saw how they could help others through their actions.
“Step Forward Day is important because we get trapped in our own little bubbles and don’t realize how much we have,” said sophomore Carrie Miller, who went to Hogar San Martin. “So when we go to these projects it really shows us how blessed we are, and that we need to give our time and talents to others because God has given so much to us.”
November 13, 2003