We were a group of 30- all which we didn’t know before hand and yet, became family throughout the week. We worked hard and helped one another. Teenagers came from all different states and helped my younger boys- whether it was through their fine example of hard work and leadership, playing with them, inspiring them, or at times ‘bodyguarding’ them. The teenagers brought energy and strength to our projects.

We also had a few families join the group. We loved getting to know them. We had a young man that worked on his Eagle project as well as my own son. A generous donation was given to provide the first technology at the school in a small village for the kids and a beautiful basketball court.

We were blessed to work with such an amazing organizer for the group, Angela Hughes, who I will forever be grateful for. She and her family are a blessing and angels to the world. We also had Dan, who shares his passion to help others and relates so well to people help CMW. He was so fun to have and my kids still mimick his awesome British accent.

We love each person in our group as we built memories working side by side sweating and playing. We enjoyed our night time chats where we came together and talked about the day.

We started building some of the first houses in a small village for families without homes, helped teach English at the school, feed lunch to the village and played with the cutest kids that live in some very poor areas near the Garbage Dump, visited the sweetest kids at an orphanage-who we quickly all adored from the first minute of playing with them, my son handed out hygiene/dental kits that the people loved, we built relationships with the locals and loved talking to them and hearing their stories.

We love each person we met as we worked and played side by side with them each day. They are the hardest working and most resourceful people ever. Our friends in Nicaragua blessed our lives and touched our hearts. We love them so much! We stayed at the most beauitful surf lodge, Monty’s Surf Lodge. We stayed in an awesome hut feet away from the ocean. Our lives have been changed, our hearts touched, and we will forever be grateful for this experience together.

Many times I wondered if this trip was for us- I wondered if I could really do this… Now, we are wondering when we can go back and feeling grateful to God for this beautiful world, beautiful children all over the world, and for giving us the opportunity to change our lives for the better.

Reflecting upon how grateful I am for God’s love, my family, the strength to get out of my comfort zone, the blessing of meeting such amazing people in my life and for the opportunity to go to Nicaragua with Color My World Kids. What a special experience for our family. One we will treasure forever in our hearts. We love our friends in Nicaragua and Color My World! Thank you for such a beautiful week.

{Written by Diane Ferre}

The post The Ferre Family goes to Nicaragua appeared first on Color My World.

These kids appreciated the soccer gear that Caden collected for his eagle scout project. However, they had no idea what to do with the shin guards. We had to show them how to put them on. The most gracious, happy, loving kids!!

This kids appreciated the soccer gear that Caden collected for his eagle scout project. However, they had no idea what to do with the shin guards. We had to show them how to put them on. The most gracious, happy, loving kids!!

 

This little guy was a blast. We would have taken him home from the orphanage if we could have!

Thoughts from Heather Vandygriff

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Take a look at our experience!

This experience was sponsored by Wright Associates Family Healthcare in Amherst & Concord.

The post Chinandega, Nicaragua Garbage Dump Feed appeared first on Color My World.

Children from all over the village came to eat lunch!

Great story here! The boy in green has a little sister who was born in Luis Gerardo Caceres Lindo truck on route to the hospital one year ago! He is saving his meal to take home to her!

The post Color My World Sponsors Lunch for Los Zorros Elementary Students appeared first on Color My World.

The post Color My World Volunteers have arrived in Nicaragua appeared first on Color My World.

The post Volunteer Nicaragua 2014 Starts Today! appeared first on Color My World.

Brotherly love in abundance was extended by 13 local residents that visited Central America as a part of a 29-person group that recently undertook a goodwill tour to rural Nicaragua. Twelve were from Bedford. One was from Amherst.

The tour, from Aug. 5-12, was presented by Color My World, a Bedford nonprofit with the mission of “leading a global effort to relieve human suffering by providing emergency response relief items and humanitarian services to those in need.” The CMW foundation was formed in 2000 by the Hughes family, of Bedford. It’s aim is to help young people experience service related activities.

The locals who went on the Nicaragua trip included Ella Garvey, 17, of Amherst, and Bedford residents McKenzie Willis, 15, Mattie Soghikian, 17, Lauren Grocott, 15, Maddie Grocott, 17, Griffin Lyons, 15, Will Toon, 17, and members of the Hughes family – Chase, 16, Elizabeth, 9, Noah, 13, and Hillary, 19, participants whose mom, Angela Hughes, and dad, Brian Hughes, led the group.

Those who signed up with Color My World through ColorMyWorldKids.org, visited places in Nicaragua where poverty is the norm. They accomplished a lot, including the removal of 32 bags of fish carcasses, plastic trash, rain-soaked scrap, rotten wood and other detritus from a town beach.

They tended a community garden. They went to the Los Zorros elementary school and served free lunches; meals prepared in advance and sponsored by Color My World. The school had no cooking facility, so the volunteers built a concrete-block kitchen. Then, they painted the building blue and white, the colors of the Nicaraguan flag.

There followed a giveaway of 50 donated solar cookers to local families. The volunteers, sustained on fish, rice, beans, chicken and fruit, also led workshops on how to use solar cooking to make healthy meals. Inhaled smoke from cook fires is of no concern when cooking with the pure heat from the tropical sun.

A stop at Casa Hogar orphanage, home to more than 20 children, led to a festive sing-a-long. Later, an emotional visit to the garbage dump at Chinandega jolted the volunteers. The visitors from New Hampshire observed people of all ages, elders to babies, living in and around the dump. In 1988, families were relocated there after Hurricane Mitch ravaged Central America. Two million homes were destroyed. Reports of 11,000 deaths – 9,000 of them in Nicaragua – were broadcast. The volunteers fed the people living at the dump. They played with children whose toys too often are filthy discards scavenged from the trash.

Chase Hughes, 16, a sophomore at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, said the deprivations are not met with anger but with gratitude for life. He said he was proud of the assistance the group provided. An additional conservation project entailed the release of newly hatched baby turtles into the sea. Every kid around watched, delighted, as the tiny turtles loped toward the churning foam.

“I felt the people were humble,” Chase said. “They were grateful for what they have and not upset about what they don’t have. They were happy for every day.”

Chase, who intends to be a dentist, said some people were ashamed to smile at photo time. Few earn more than $5 a day and funds rarely go toward toothpaste. The volunteers eventually gave away nearly 100 pounds of hygiene kits, each comprised of four toothbrushes, two bars of soap, two combs and two hand towels.

Chase noted that visiting the tropics offers many challenges. Mosquitoes are relentless. Bats fly everywhere. He said that, daily, hundreds of crabs the size of his hand hunted morsels on the beach. Seeing the crabs was “cool,” Chase admitted. A sand dollar washed ashore is one of his cherished souvenirs.

“The ocean was very warm like bath water but everyone went into the ocean to cool off,” Chase said. “That was a big thing – to go to the ocean. The trip was a life-changing experience with all the service you do and the joy you find.”

Angela Hughes, Chase’s mother, said that a CMW group is returning to Nicaragua, and also to Guatemala, in 2014. In the past 10 years, Color My World has brought solace to the victims of many U.S. disasters, including Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. It has sent relief kits to Chile, Haiti and Indonesia after earthquakes there. Hygiene kits by the score went to communities scoured by a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Two years ago, participants extended their range. They took solar cookers and hygiene kits to Costa Rica.

“The perception that people in Central America are lazy is not the case,” Angela said. “They leave at night to go fishing and if you see them during the day, taking naps on their hammocks, it’s because they’ve been working all night. It’s 24 hours to eat and live.”

She said the group’s immersion into a third world environment where there was no clean water for bathing, only salt-water showers, no technology, no social media and no convenience store less than an hour away was “an eye-opening experience.” The volunteers witnessed people living their lives in shacks. Hammocks were beds. The bathroom? Go in the woods.

“The kids who went on this trip were forced to interact with people,” Angela said. “It’s poverty at the lowest level you can ever reach. The kids were nervous there. They pushed through it. It went from, ‘Can I do this?’ to ‘Can I come back, next time?’ I just saw confidence grow every day.”

For more information, visit www.colormyworldkids.org. The Color My World motto is “Search inward, Look upward, Reach outward.”

Friday, September 6, 2013

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Angela Hughes photo

Color My World’s Bedford and Amherst participants in the trip to Nicaragua are seen here, front row, from left, Griffin Lyons, 15, of Bedford, Lauren Grocott, 15, of Bedford, Hillary Hughes, 19, of Bedford, McKenzie Willis, 15, of Bedford, Mattie Soghikian, 15, of Bedford, Ella Garvey, 17, of Amherst, Elizabeth Hughes, 9, of Bedford, and Maddie Grocott, 17, of Bedford, who traveled along with, back row from left, Will Toon, 17, of Bedford, Brian Hughes, Chase Hughes, 16, Noah Hughes, 13, and Angela Hughes, all of Bedford.

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By LORETTA JACKSON

– See more at: http://www.cabinet.com/bedfordjournal/bedfordnews/1015119-308/bedford-youth-visit-nicaragua-to-help-the.html#sthash.WetwJHCH.dpuf

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