March 31, 2017 On our last day in Cuba, we visited a beautiful farm in the small town of Alcalá, about an hour and a half away from Holguín. Getting to this farm was probably the most challenging part of the day as our tour bus could not drive through a patch of fertilizer...
Continue readingOur Wonderful Literary Journey
Our last day in England was one to remember: we returned to the village of Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters. We took a 5-mile hike out into the moors that the sisters would have done daily (in long dresses, no less!). Our guide, Martin, read us Emily Bronte’s poetry about the moors as...
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Community Empowerment Through Service Learning: Final Reflections
This Intensive Learning taught me a lot about the Camden community. Moving forward with my volunteer time going back to Camden is a good possibility. I really enjoyed volunteering at the soup kitchen and seeing all the grateful people and how happy someone can be, despite being in the position they are. I would...
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Literary England: York and Haworth, Home of the Bronte Sisters
Today we ended our brief sojourn across the Scottish border and got back into the English countryside. We traveled from the extreme northwest of England to the northeast and then down to Yorkshire. We spent part of the day in York, home to the breathtaking Yorkminster Abbey. We toured windy and narrow medieval streets,...
Continue readingSantiago, Cuba: To the Heart of the City
Thursday, March 30 For the first time in almost a week, we were forced to awaken close to six in the morning. However, this was a nice change from our typical schedule of service and local touring. Today we went to Santiago de Cuba, a lovely, historic city in southern Cuba, that holds many...
Continue readingFinding Meaning Through Service
This week we went to a lot of places where people were really in need and we helped them by donating food and clothes, serving them breakfast and lunch and simply giving them someone to talk to. The two places that impacted me the most were the Cathedral Food Pantry, which we went to one...
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Final Day of Yoga Retreat
Today we woke up early to practice an energizing vinyasa flow. As part of the last practice we were encouraged for one song to let go of everything and to be free as we danced around the room. Afterwards we headed to breakfast to enjoy our last meal together, homemade yogurt and grains and...
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Yoga Retreat Day 5: Boat Pose … on a Boat
Today we started with an intense vinyasa class that had a lot of ab work in it. After breakfast, we made mala necklaces/bracelets with the full 108 beads (one = wholeness, zero = emptiness, eight = infinity, plus a lot of other reasons for the number 108) to use as a meditation tool. Then we...
Continue readingSouth Jersey Service: Youth Engineering and Science
Exploration: something that everyone desires, but only a few get to grasp. So many people aspire to spend even a fraction of their lives exploring places, ideas, memories, yet barely a handful of them find the lucky key that unlocks the time for exploration. Today, the key was handed to us, as well as...
Continue readingFiesta con Tamales!
Excursión MFS filled the hallways with the wonderful smells of homemade tamales, flan cake, guacamole, and churros cookies today. We cooked a feast! After a wonderful week with an enthusiastic group of students, we sat and enjoyed one another over a delicious meal....
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Invigorated by Service, Then Salsa
Wednesday, March 29 Today we woke up at 8:30 to eat breakfast and get started on the exciting day we had planned. After breakfast, we split into two groups. Most of our group went outside to the street in front of the church to unload a bus carrying 312 cases of Bibles for the...
Continue readingService in Camden: Cathedral Food Pantry & Anna Sample House
We made sandwiches for distribution at Cathedral Food Pantry on Market Street. We ate lunch at CK Cafe, a social enterprise project through Cathedral Kitchen, where MFSers frequently help out. We also did some work at the Anna Sample House through Volunteers of America....
Continue readingYoga Retreat Day 4: Horseback Riding through Nature
Today we started off with a vinyasa practice with awesome music to wake everyone up. After breakfast, we worked on making some yoga-inspired jewelry. Then, we had a lecture on the levels of listening (ignoring, pretending, selective, attentive, and empathic), which we followed by empathically listening to each other in small groups. To connect...
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Feeling Accomplished
Unsure of how our partners at the Pinelands Preservation Alliance would receive our proposals this morning, we made some final touches and prepared our presentations for our 9:30 am meeting at their office. At 8:30, everyone packed up their prototypes and rushed to the bus as rain drizzled down. Once on site, we enjoyed a light breakfast...
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Let’s Sew for Babies, Day 6: Final Stitches
This morning when we arrived at the Greenleaf some of us put the final stitches on our projects and some made simple projects to add to the collection. Alden, Josh, and Alex had finished all their projects and cooked us breakfast. They made eggs, bacon, and hot chocolate. Once we wrapped up all of our projects...
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