Charlotte Wells '24
Service is at the very heart of Cate, shown through the school motto, ‘Servons.’ The idea of Servons is critical to Los Niños, the four-day service-learning trip to Mexicali. The trip gives three faculty and twenty-one students from our Cate community an opportunity to gain awareness and give back.
This year’s trip consisted of mixing concrete and solidifying a fence at a school for disabled children, mixing concrete and painting a classroom at another school, and talking with migrants and their children at a female migrant shelter. The group was shown also how brickmaking works and got to interact with a lovely woman Porfilia who cooked the group a delicious meal and sold us honey. The group also played an intense game of soccer, with Ari Seal '24 deciding to switch to the other team and play against our Cate students.
One of the most impactful moments of the trip was conversing with the children of migrants in the migrant shelter and playing with them. Lots of laughs were shared and the universal language of playing was incredibly apparent at this moment. Though there was a language barrier for people at times, this did not stop genuine interactions from happening. The stories that the brave women in the shelter shared about their journeys were powerful.
The trip is overall a great experience for a Cate student as an opportunity to step outside the Cate bubble and gain insight into the lives of others less fortunate than ours.
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