El Arca

One of BAICA’s schoolwide values is service. Every year, we take time to serve others in the community during Week Without Walls. This is a time students participate in a variety of service activities that expanded the learning  outside the classroom walls.  The following is one of our student’s experience from time of service during Week Without Walls. 

For Week Without Walls we had the opportunity to go to El Arca. El Arca is a non-profit organization that looks to provide activities and assistance to those who have mental discapacities. We hung out with them, ate with them, talked with them, sang with them and worked with them. We joined them in their workshop where they make arts and crafts to sell and then helped them clean/organize both the workshop and the home were some of them live. I consider this to have been a very valuable and memorable experience because we went with the intention of helping them but ended up learning a lot more than we could have ever thought. It gave us the opportunity to see what things really count in life (such as relationships), and realize what the meaning of success really is and see how God can turn a disability into a blessing. Its amazing how they can enjoy life so much regardless of their intellectual complications, how they can be so happy with so little. It was an experience that helped us to be able to value and appreciate what we have and what our capabilities are as well as help someone else.

 By Charlotte Miccolis-Gurney