Love comes quickly: Students for 60,000 bring home gratitude and hope from Kenya

Profound feelings of love, gratitude and hopefulness were expressed by Northport High School students who traveled in February to Mtito Andei in the Iviani region of Kenya – a trip the school’s Students for 60,000 service club first took in 2020 – during a community forum held earlier this week at the Northport Library. 

This year’s Students for 60,000 trip had a lasting impact on every student and chaperone who presented at the forum, and taught them about the power of positivity and human connection, especially in our modern-day era of polarization.  

The forum began with a short lecture by Northport High School (NHS) teacher and trip chaperone Darryl St. George, who spoke about a concept called truth decay: the state of our country’s political and civil discourse that has blurred the line between opinions and facts, reduced trust in formerly respected sources, and created competing demands within our educational system. Truth decay, coupled with the increased use of smartphones and screened technology, has left young students and adults alike unable to find common ground or connect in a positive way, exacerbating feelings of discontentment and uselessness, St. George explained. 

“Service learning is the answer,” he said, noting how themes of love and hope shared by the students who visited Kenya illustrate the necessity of experiences like the one to Mtito Andei. 

Twenty-four students and eight adults/chaperones visited Kenya for the service program, which involves the construction of school buildings in the village of Mtito Andei. For some students, it was their first trip to the community; others embarked on a return trip to continue the work they started in years past. 

So far, Students for 60,000 has completed a junior-secondary building for student learning and during this most recent trip, worked alongside residents to lay the foundation for the administrative building. The work involved difficult manual labor such as mixing and transporting sand, rock and cement to lay a solid floor for the space. Throughout the year, Kenyan residents prepared the ground and dug the well for the foundation. When the administrative building is complete, the group plans to build a high school and install a protective fence.   

Beyond the manual work contributed by NHS students, the trip is largely focused on building relationships with village children and their families. During their presentations at the library, there was barely any mention of the work and monetary contributions that took place. Instead, students shared photos of themselves with young village children, and told stories of the deep connections they made with, and the immense love they received from, the locals, many of whom did not speak English but spoke with smiles, laughter, hugs and play. 

Owen Simpson was the first student to speak at the forum, showing on the large screen an image of the trip’s opening church service in Kenya, where the pastor read a verse from Corinithians: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Simpson said this set the tone for the trip, making clear the importance of sharing and receiving love openly throughout their experience. He said that he saw love everywhere on the trip – through interactions with village children, his peers from NHS, and the chaperones. “Everywhere I looked, I saw love, and it was one of the most impactful things to me,” Simpson said.

Pat Clements fundraised his trip to Mtito Andei and was able to go with his sister, Lilly. He also expressed the surprising but deeply impactful connections he made, especially one with a seventh grade boy. “He ran up to me and wanted to know everything about me…he was my best friend on this trip,” he said. They danced and played soccer together, unable to communicate in English. “As I came to help them, I feel like I got so much back,” Clements said. He also expressed his love for his peers and pride for his community, who made the trip possible for him. “It was just amazing – the best trip ever,” he said. 

Student reflections continued with similar recollections of love and connection. Isabelle McArdle said she looks at relationships differently since the trip, “in such a beautiful way,” and Katie Gardella said, “There’s not a day that goes by that I haven’t thought about their smiling faces.” 

Colin Cote said that we come from a society where human connection is such a rarity, but in Kenya “love comes quickly.” He said the little boys he spent time with were “beacons of hope and joy.” 

Callan Devine spoke about the trust that was shared in the village and told a story of a baby being placed in her arms during their opening church ceremony, after simply smiling at the mother. 

Isabelle McArdle said the love she felt was beautiful, but it also hurt because of the conditions witnessed in the village. “We tend to avoid reality or avoid the truth, but that’s the truth of what’s going on in the world, and it hurts so badly because of how much I love them,” she said, adding that being there and showing love is what helps heal that pain. 

Vivienne Cierski helped organize a shoe drive for the villagers and said that it brought her joy. She said that during their nightly reflection one evening, while thinking about the little girl she met in Kenya and learned to love, she had a thought: “I can’t wait to bring my daughter back here and introduce her.” Students for 60,000 is a club that lets them access their best selves and their full potential, Cierski said, adding that the sense of community they experienced in Mtito Andei can also happen right here: “We have it in Northport, we’re just waiting to find it, we’re waiting to have trips like this that let us access the fullest amounts of our potential,” she said, noting how grateful she is to have had the opportunity. 

Matthew Munson went to Kenya with his father, Jim. He spoke about Mtito Andei as a genuine, loving place, and also took a moment to recognize his father. He said that his dad is his hero and after experiencing this trip, he has become even more compassionate, loving and caring. “He really takes all of this to heart. I know he uses it every day in the people that he talks to, the people that he interacts with, his friends and family,” he said. “It’s honestly one of the most beautiful things you can see from someone I aspire to be and look up to so much,” Munson said.  

The other trip chaperones, Larry Licopoli, Karen Paquet, Michele Torre, Mike Cleary, and Kathy Caruso, had the same experiences of love, connection and community relayed by the students. 

The sense of togetherness shared at the community forum was nothing short of amazing. Audience members wiped away tears during student presentations, smiled back at the joyful faces of Kenyan villagers in their photos, and felt the positive influence this service trip had on not only the 24 teenagers and their chaperones, but on their families and the district as a whole.

Harry Radziul, who had never been out of the country before going to Kenya, said that the little boy he connected with, whose name means “the lover” in English, never said a word to him, but when he wanted to be picked up (which was often), he would point to the sky. These students returned home feeling taller, larger than life, and inspired to make Northport-East Northport a more beautiful, loving and altruistic place.