This summer Palmetto High School senior Sara Kong traveled to Jamaica on a mission trip with her church, Kendall United Methodist. That weeklong trip opened her eyes to the needs of the poor in Jamaica and prompted her to develop a plan to conduct a drive a collect bicycles and shoes for the children of the island.
“It’s going to be in and outside of school,” she says. “I’m going to be ask friends and family as well.”
Kong will work with Palmetto’s National Honor Society and her church to collect the goods that will be shipped to Jamaica. Her goal is to collect 50 bikes and as many shoes as possible.
While in Jamaica, Kong and the group put on Vacation Bible School style summer camps for children in Port Antonio for four days and Kingston for three days. She’s familiar with the programs, having volunteered at the Kendall United Methodist Camp Mustard Seed and Vacation Bible Schools for years, starting almost as soon as she was too old for the programs she attended as a child.
“We had a team about 17,” she says. Six of the 17 were high school students. They worked with children aged three to about 10.
“We split it up into different teams. We had recreation team, crafts, and storytelling,” she says. “I was on the recreation team.”
The children would rotate teams throughout the day.
“I’d have each group from half an hour to 45 minutes. You can tell the impact we had on them. They were so shy at the beginning at the end of the last day they were clinging on to us,” she says.
As it often happens when teens visit a country where there is extreme poverty, Kong says she came home with a whole new mind set and a resolve to help, which is why she is collecting bikes and shoes.
“Some kids didn’t even have shoes,” she says. “I gave my shoes away to a little girl in Kingston on the last day. The idea with the bikes. I got them from storytelling. They asked them one day, if they could have anything in the world, what would it be and the majority said a bicycle.”
She also noticed that when they would give the children snacks, things like the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish in small Ziploc bags, the children would save them to share with their families.
At Palmetto, Kong is captain of varsity cheerleading. She’s the student involvement chair for Student Council and is on the board of Panther to Panther, the mentoring program for incoming freshmen.
This is the third year for Panther to Panther and there was a strong turnout of freshmen requesting help.
“This year the freshmen couldn’t wait,” she says. “We reached out to them much more.”
They introduced the program at the Panther Preview event.
“My friend and I, we presented what panther to panther is and there was a sign-up sheet,” Kong says. “I think that made them more comfortable.”
For college, Kong hopes to stay in-state, with applications going to UF and FSU. She also plans to apply to Georgia Tech. Her top choice for a major at this time is psychology although she’s also considering teaching.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
