We’ve finally reached the finish line of our service project! Our CAP has successfully been delivered to the ladies at Mujeres del Plomo after three days of intense planning and hard work. As the leaders of today, Tracy-Jane and I, Kimberly, woke up the rest of the Glimpsers up bright and early at six am, which is surprisingly late for us now considering we’ve been waking up at four or five a.m. for the past few days. We were given our last opportunity to complete our project from eight a.m. to noon to which we worked frantically to complete our mission of building two tables, two benches, a fence enclosing the entire open workshop area, and painting the inside of the workshop. As we worked, the children of the families swarmed around us eager to help with the construction work by helping us paint over the wood with sealant and taking away pieces of scrap wood. Nonetheless, even though the work was hard and tiring, we finished the project right as lunch rolled around and the Glimpsers celebrated the end of the construction work by enjoying a delicious lunch put together by the lovely ladies from the hostel.

We then gathered as a community and both the ladies of the Mujeres del Plomo and us Glimpsers exchanged special thank you speeches. Maritza, the owner of the workshop, had her daughters perform a nice closing ceremony as a special thank you gesture that symbolized her appreciation of our hard work, time, effort and dedication. The girls showed us a well-practiced dance and encouraged us to join in on the fun. Some of us student s and the leaders participated in the hip-shaking entertainment.

After cleaning up the scraps and remodeling the workshop, the members of the community invited us for a nice game of soccer, or in the Latin American culture futból, where the real winners of the game was everyone involved in this service project. We then said our last goodbyes and then departed to go reflect on our very successful day.
Words cannot describe the impact we Glimpsers left on the community in San Ramon. This experience has changed us all, both mentally and socially. We left smiles on all of the faces of the individuals in the village, and also made a better mentality for all of us. We have realized that an individual cannot make a huge influence like we did today because as a group we set aside our differences to create this project that helped a greater cause. The small details we added to the Mujeres del Plomo’s workshop had an enormous impact on the ladies and the community as a whole.

We thank everyone who was involved for their tireless efforts in making this project possible. It was a great learning experience and we hope that this service project has left a life- changing significance for everyone.