NB Anglicans make a difference
by Ana Watts
What do a vivacious university student from Christ Church (Parish) Church of Fredericton and a retired miner from St. George’s Church in Bathurst have in common, besides their Anglican identity?
They share a generosity of spirit and a love for people.
About 10 years ago, just before he took his first holiday in Cuba, Don Goodspeed of Bathurst saw a documentary on the country. Baseball, his favourite sport, is huge in Cuba, even with children who play with dead balls and scavenged steel rod bats. He spent about $70 dollars on half a dozen baseballs (they cost about $40 each in Cuba) and took them down with him. He was a popular tourist indeed. Each successive trip he took more baseball equipment –– some bought, lots donated –– and became a hero to the sports community.
He also discovered many of the little things we take for granted –– toothpaste, Aspirin, school supplies –– are equally inaccessible. So he began to collect those things as well and take them down. He left them with an Anglican priest who distributed these useful gifts far and wide.
A little publicity in his home town and in this newspaper sparked all kinds of imaginations. Donations began to roll in. He has such an inventory now that he is always looking for other travellers to Cuba and other developing countries to take a load. Canon George Porter, our diocesan youth action director and his youth delegation took their share on a mission a few years ago. The Primate and a National Church delegation from Toronto volunteered to take even more last winter. And countless tourists from New Brunswick take extra suitcases filled with the little things that mean so much.
This spring, Rebecca Tremblay of Fredericton and other students from St. Thomas University signed-on with three leaders from the Falls Brook Centre in Carleton
County for a working trip to Nicaragua and Honduras. The Falls Brook Centre
supports environmentally sustainable and culturally appropriate international
community development initiatives.
In preparation for their trip, the team raised money to finance their work projects and collected items for children in the schools they would visit.
“We took all kinds of things, school supplies, soccer balls, toiletries, clothing …” and a lot of it came from Don Goodspeed in Bathurst.
“I’ll send whatever I can to any third world country in the blink of an eye” says Don, who recently inherited a lot of great school supplies.
“Three old schools in this area are closing and will be replaced by a new one, and there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of school supplies that will not be going over to the new school. The teachers and principals all know me, know that I can get these things to children who can use them. Some of the teachers put in a little extra things for me like almost new chalk and some scribblers.”
Rebecca e-mailed Don from Honduras to assure him that “ every last bit of what you sent has been put to good use! Thank you so much for providing us with the supplies to bring down. The people here are so appreciative.”
Don replied “I am so happy that together we could make difference in these children’s lives.”
These two make quite a team, even though they have never met.
Rebecca and the rest of the team in Central America spent a lot of time in schools with the children. “Before we went, we created some games to teach about things like nutrition and geography, we really tried to make them fun games, and we enjoyed playing them with the children. We incorporated soccer balls and art and those things in the games.
“We also worked in gardens, built water reservoirs called pilas and contributed to to the installation of new plumbing at a school in Nicaragua. We raised the money we needed to do these things before we left Fredericton.”
The cement water reservoirs the team made were often installed in the yards of houses. “The house were literally shacks made of wood planks and cardboard with tin roofs,” said Rebecca. “Many had little gardens growing in their rocky yards and they were very proud to show them to us. The gardens were a source of food, and sometimes they yielded a little extra to sell, or to give to a neighbour. One woman had a banana tree and gave us each a short, fat, sweet banana. You could tell she was really happy to be able to do it. She was proud and truly generous. Another woman said ‘Our homes may be small, but our hearts are big, and you are always welcome’"
Rebecca is an actress, singer and dancer as well as a student, so she was delighted when the children of the owners of a lodge where the team stayed few nights danced for her.
“When they finished, I danced for them. I did a bit of the Napoleon dynamite dance, and some salsa, and some break dancing and a ballet spin. They loved the Napoleon one 'cuz I called it the baile loca which means the crazy dance. Later I saw them doing it for their parents and laughing.”
At one of the schools the children offered a lively dance program featuring regetton music.
“I decided to show them a bit of break dancing, and they loved it,” says Rebecca. “The next thing I knew, I had a kid break dance-battling me, and he was really, really good. He even had shades in his pocket. He could do L-kicks and one-handed hand stands, He would go in the circle and challenge me, and I would go in an try it. I beat him at invert and windmill, but he was wicked at those handstands! It was amazing! The kids screamed at every move I did.”
Rebecca’s halting Spanish improved tremendously during her time in Central America. The rest of the team returned to Fredericton, but she is now headed for Mar del Plata in Argentina where she will study as an exchange student until December. Her improved Spanish should stand her in good stead.
Anyone planning a trip to Central or South America who would like to take school supplies and other useful items is asked to contact Don Goodspeed (gladys2 at rogers.com). The substantial load of school and other supplies Rebecca and her team took to Nicaragua and Honduras hardly made a dent in his supply.
