It wasn’t your typical spring break.
Ashley Wilson, a 2002 Clarkston High School graduate, now a freshman at Michigan State University, wasn’t in Daytona Beach partying with her friends like many young people do this time of the year.
No, she was volunteering her time and services to an orphanage in Mexico, and forming memories that will stay with her the rest of her life.
“It was amazing; really, really good,” Wilson said, who returned to Michigan March 8, after a week away.
Ashley and more than 20 other MSU students were part of the Alternative Spring Break program offered through the Service Learning Center, a volunteer agency at the college.
To raise money for the trip, Ashley participated in several fundraisers like becoming a guest chef at Mongolian Barbecue as well as collected donations from family , friends and businesses.
The MSU group raised more than enough money and donations to each bring an extra suitcase filled with supplies like paper and pencils plus toys like balls, stickers and beads for the kids.
After arriving in Mexico Saturday, March 1, the students broke into small groups and worked at their own “site.”
Wilson, along with nine other girls, volunteered at Casa Hogar, the all girls orphanage.
The girls there were between the ages of two and 12. “But the majority were between six and nine,” Ashley said.
“I didn’t know what to expect. The girls either have no families or some come from single parent homes. And the orphanages there are not like the ones here. They don’t adopt out.”
But Ashley said she was real impressed with the facility and the way it was run. “It’s really nice. I was surprised.”
Monday through Thursday, Ashley said, “we’d paint from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., then help the girls with their homework (with assistance from a Spanish interpreter) and then play with them.”
Overall Ashley’s group painted 40 beds and chairs, a swing set, a dollhouse and stairs. But it was the time spent with the girls, of course, that was so special to Ashley.
The young girls fondly called Ashley, Maria. “My middle name is Marie. Ashley was too hard for them to say, so they called me Maria.”
One day, she found her backpack covered in post-it notes from the girls, that read, “Maria, we love you.”
She also received many drawings, and a very special note from one little eight-year-old girl which said, “I love you Maria, your friend Saudi.”
Though Ashley thoroughly enjoyed her first trip to Mexico, there was, unfortunately, one down side. It was too short.
It was emotional leaving the girls behind, Ashley said, “but I know the girls are in good hands with the nuns there, and I know they are fed well and are in a beautiful place.”
Ashley — who has also volunteered at O.A.T.S, Offering Alternative Therapy with a Smile, for two years and was a coach for Special Olympics through the program — is planning to gather a large group and go back to the orphanage again next year, this time for a longer duration. She is also hoping to stay involved by holding a shoe drive, an item she said the girls were in desperate need of.
Overall, the pre-med student said, “I learned a lot about myself. I definitely want to continue doing work with kids. Not so much in Mexico, because there is so much to do here, too.”