Bound for Mexico
Around midnight on June 26th, nine basketball players and their two coaches from Lakeland High School will board a red-eye flight to Los Angeles, bound not for basketball camp or summer clinics, but for a connecting flight to Mexico City. The next morning, with newcomer eyes wide open, they’ll board a bus headed to Puebla, a city of 3 million about 60 miles southeast of Mexico’s capital.
The boys and their coaches are volunteering 10 days of their time to participate in a well-digging project sponsored by an organization called Community of Acts. Assisting a professional well digger whose expertise has also been donated to the project, the team will be hand digging trenches for pipes that will ultimately bring fresh water to the village of Trinidad, which has never had its own water supply.
Coach Trent Derrick hatched the idea for this humanitarian mission and, together with Coach Shawn Stanford, will accompany the boys.
“When you look at high school athletics, it’s spent developing skills,” Derrick explains. “There’s so little emphasis on development of character and the whole person. It’s all about me … ‘How can I get better?’ I want to turn this on its head … to create a team that works to improve the team. The world needs a generation that understands giving and compassion.”
While the Lakeland School District is supportive, the Mexico trip isn’t a district-sponsored event, due to liability concerns, and the players have to pay their own way by raising money.” Airfare, lodging, meals and ground transportation costs will total $1,000 per person. The team must raise $11,000 and they’re approximately two-thirds of the way to meeting their goal.
The group is planning to canvass neighborhoods in Rathdrum soon, asking homeowners to donate to the trip in exchange for having their house number stenciled on the curb in front of their houses. The local Fire Department supports this effort, as it aids in their ability to quickly identify a house in the event of an emergency.
Other groups that have given financial support include the Lions’ Club, the Rathdrum Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, and the Booster Club of Lakeland High School.
Tom Basile, who heads up Community of Acts, met Derrick in Portland and the two have been friends for 10 years. Community of Acts networks with various businesses that donate supplies and manpower for specific humanitarian projects. For this particular mission, a well-digging machine has been donated and will be shipped to Puebla, and an experienced operator provided as an overseer.
In addition to the well project, the boys and their coaches will hold a basketball camp in the evenings for children living in an orphanage in Puebla. They also have plans to spend a day in a Mexican high school, which will be in session at the time of their visit.
The group is not sure what their accommodations will be while in Puebla. They will probably divide into groups of two or three and be given the choice of staying in hotels, at a nearby campground, or with local families. The challenge of the unknown is part of the adventure. In preparation for the hot, dry, high desert climate, they’re packing family-size bottles of sunscreen and have each been immunized against tetanus, hepatitis B, malaria and typhoid.
Asked what they expect to get out of the experience, the same answers come from several players at once, “Developing a stronger work ethic, having our eyes opened to a different culture, not taking so much for granted.”
Language barriers might pose some interesting challenges. Half of the team members are studying beginning Spanish in school this year, but only one of them is in second-year Spanish. Luckily, shoulder-to-shoulder work and team sports are both activities that enjoy an international language of their own.
Asked what they plan to bring back with them, one player puts it succinctly, “Memories.”