Eleven projects, nearly 200 people and a Saturday morning resulted in more than 600 hours of volunteer work to help The Friendly Island of St. Maarten. It was Community Action Day at the American University of the Caribbean (AUC) medical school.
Students, their spouses and faculty come together once a term; the school has three terms yearly to give back to the community. Among the projects selected for help this term included I Can Foundation, Red Cross, St. Maarten Zoo, SXM Paws, Tzu Chi Foundation, White and Yellow Cross and St. Maarten Little League Player Development Program.
Service is nothing new to this group. Between Community Action Days, many members of the AUC family come out to volunteer between classes and test taking. AIDS Foundation and other medical groups benefit from their free screenings. Others help local children improve their reading, writing and math skills.
Some 19 AUC groups in their black Community Action Day T-shirts showed up at the Little League Ballpark on Pond Island at 9:00am Saturday. The group divided up into those working with children and those helping with maintenance and infrastructure improvements. A couple of big guys started repairing gym equipment. One girl painted the newly installed window in the Science Lab. Another group ran wire into one of the other structures. Yet others grabbed books and worksheets and sat with the children in need of reading or math work. Run by Little League, Player Development is a free after school program that stresses the importance of education. To encourage the children to work hard, the program relies on positive rewards.
Saturday, the AUC group, which included a few former college ballplayers, adjourned to the diamond and played a friendly game of children against AUC. Everyone played hard and had a great time. There were hits and outs. No one struck out. It was not allowed. When it was all over, the AUC students gathered the children together and provided the group with snacks and drinks. The highlight of the day was when a life size model of the arm without skin was brought out. One of the school professors showed the children the model and discussed how an arm works, described the muscle groups and the importance of taking care of the arm to avoid injuries. All the children wanted to touch the model and learn more about bones, joints and the rotator cuff they’d heard so much about that is important in ”Pitching Hard.”
Monday, the Little League children were busy writing thank you letters and inviting the group back for a re-match. They felt badly they had won the game by one run. The children thought they should have won by more.
contributed by Tom A. Burnett Jr.
