Last Service Day, half of the tenth grade went to AFYA’s warehouse in Yonkers. We were given a quantity of no longer needed medical supplies and sorted the supplies into what was still usable and what was not, taking into account packaging and expiration dates. The usable supplies will be sent to various parts of the world in which medical aid is needed but often inadequate due to low resources.

I had not previously considered the amount of medical supplies that may be wasted simply because of inefficiencies in our own hospitals. I therefore found it enlightening to see just how much of what was discarded was still usable and needed around the world. However, I would have liked to learn more about where our particular medical supplies were being sent, which I think would have given us a better connection to the purpose of the activity. I look forward to learning about more ignored or neglected issues during my future at Friends.

The Sunday following pre-season soccer camp, the Boys Varsity soccer team went on a week long trip to Tobago, home nation to Coach Warren Salandy and former Coach Sherwin O’Neil. We stayed at the famed Coco Reef hotel. This beautiful resort consisted of a warm, biologically-rich beach where we would spend much of our free time in, whether it be swimming, chilling, or snorkeling. Snorkeling was remarkable, as I was able to see a wide variety of species of fish as well as the occasional squid.

We trained at a couple of different fields, each not more than a 20 minute drive from the hotel. One thing that struck me was the intense humidity, an environment I was not used to.

The biggest takeaway experience from this trip was doing the clinic with the kids of Tobago. We had two clinics, one with Warren and Sherwin’s old soccer academy and the other with the school they went to. It was very fun working with these kids, who were passionate to get better, and run drills with them that we ran at our own practices. It was fun to see the smile on their faces at the end of the clinics, when they picked out a pair of cleats out of the vast collection we had gathered back home and brought to Tobago.

Overall, it was a very fun experience. As a sophomore, I would be ecstatic to repeat this trip next summer.

During the last week of August the mens varsity soccer team were lucky enough to travel to Tobago. This trip held meaning for us because we were traveling to our coaches hometown (Warren Salandy and Sherwin O’Neill). We played local teams and did many different activities on the island, like snorkeling and cliff jumping. As well as having fun and playing games we brought soccer equipment to the island for coaches, players and teams. During some of the days on the island we ran clinics for schools and club teams on the island. At the end we would donate some of the equipment. Seeing what we could do and what impact we could make made me very joyful. By the end of the trip most of the island knew who we were. Our captain went to a TV station to conduct an interview with our coaches and David Lieber. Overall this experience was very fulfilling to what the Friends community stands for.

Nonprofit – Kleats For Kids

Rocco Danese

This summer I spent four weeks at the UU-UNO (Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office) as their interim Climate Change Initiative intern. I worked on updating and completing a Unitarian Universalist religious education curriculum on climate change, and on writing congregational action plans for education and service toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. I think that through working on these projects, I helped to educate myself about climate change, the politics and ethics around it, and how it can affect all of the world’s peoples. By working on the congregational action plans, I got a better understanding of how the SDGs were chosen and passed and what they entail. Overall, I think I learned a lot from this experience and will use this new knowledge about climate change in my life going forward.