Dedham Middle School Asks for Help for Needy Students

Recently, Dedham Middle School Principal, Debra Gately, led a contingent of students and teachers on a humanitarian trip to Costa Rica. The twenty-one 7th and 8th grade students were joined by Spanish teachers, Arielle Sutton, Chris Nadeau, Maureen Magnan, and Science teacher Alice Machinist.

The eight-day journey provided the group with an array of educational and cultural experiences. Principal Gately works hard all year to keep her students involved in the community, and she told us that with this trip to Costa Rica, “we are trying to give our students here at DMS, a global perspective.”

Costa Rica is located on a peninsula south of Honduras and Nicaragua, and north of Panama. It has the Pacific Ocean to it's west and the Caribbean Sea to it's east and was first discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1519.

The group from the Dedham Middle School stayed in the old port town of Puntarenas. From the late 1800s through the mid 1900s, this city thrived with the exportation of their fine coffee. In the 1980s, a new, modern port was built in the neighboring city of Caldera. Though not as destitute as some of it`s neighbors, this left the old wooden  buildings and potholed roads of Puntarenas in need of repair. The population of 100,000 (Dedham has about 30,00 people) has turned to tourism to help keep it alive.

While the group enjoyed their visit to an active volcano, along with zip lining and hiking in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, it was their trip to the Escuela Lider Julieta Primary School that touched them the most. Teacher Arielle Sutton told us, “the trip to the school was my favorite part… it was really emotional to see kids, from different parts of the world, interacting and teaching one another. By the end of our visit, the young Costa Rican students hugged those from DMS, telling them they would never forget them.”

Teacher Chris Nadeau added, “the trip to their school was eye-opening… the students from DMS shopped for a few “supplies” to bring to the students of Escuela la Julieta. Our students left, feeling that they wanted to do more.” Ms. Gately realized that “these students don't have and don't have access to, the basic school supplies that we take for granted here in America. Pens, paper, index cards, notebooks, glue stix, markers, stickers, crayons, coloring books, folders and more, are all desperately needed.”

8th grader Kayla Haney “loved the trip, these kids were so sweet… it would mean the world to them if we could send them stuff.” Classmate Emma Porter told us, “we are so fortunate to have everything, we have money to get school supplies, where as they do not.” DMS 7th grader Maggie Dolt let us know “this was a life-changing experience… they got stuff from us, even a notebook was amazing for them.”

Fellow 7th grader Emma Francis added “when they received a coloring book, they treated it like a million dollars.”

So now is the time. The Dedham Middle School students are appealing to their classmates and to all of you. The group has set up a donation box in the school's front office.

They would like to see all of the students bring in an item or two, and they can put together a few packages to mail back to the children in Costa Rica. Any folks out there that would like to help children not as fortunate as our own, please feel free to stop by the school with your own donation of school supplies and Ms. Gately and the group have vowed to forward these along.

With the end of the school year in sight, the deadline for donations will be Friday June 17, 2013. This project, along with others planned, are all part of DMS Cares.