Eight Suttons Bay High Schoolers will embark on a dual-exchange trip to Guatemala with LIFT (Leelanau Investing for Teens) Teen Center staff and mentors this month.
In partnership with the international nonprofit “Planting Seeds,” the students will serve in preschools and a community center, engage in conversation with local community members, learn about the country’s indigenous culture, and will sample both food and language over the course of a week.
The once-in-a-lifetime trip gives students, some of whom have never traveled out of the country, the opportunity to take in service and learning experiences they otherwise would not have the chance to do before graduating from high school.
“I think we’ll be able to pack in a lot in those eight days, but also have some time for the students to get to explore on their own and have some down time,” said LIFT Associate Director Audrey Sharp, who is also going on the trip with her husband, an ICU nurse. “We’re also going to experience and explore Mayan ruins and learn how to do traditional weaving and go to some museums. It’s a really nice balance of service and getting to know people just like us but in a different community… I hope that in addition to gaining some practical travel skills, that they also leave with an even bigger curiosity for the world around them, and even perhaps how they can make a difference not only in their own community, but in communities elsewhere.”
Support for the trip started with Suttons Bay Congregational Church. Prior to 2020, the church had put in a lot of work to raise money for a youth trip to Appalachia. The trip did not work out because of travel restrictions and other setbacks caused by the COVID pandemic at the time, but they still wanted the money to go towards a service travel experience for young people in the community. The church later approached LIFT staff to see if the teens in their program could utilize the funds for a similar travel service experience, and from there, plans began for an international trip abroad.
“Travel is one of the best ways to educate, especially going to another country with different customs and traditions,” Sharp said. “They recommended Planting Seeds International because they have partnered with them in the past, so I actually got to go down last February to meet Planting Seeds and learn a little bit more about them and see if it would be a good fit. I was really blown away, their mission is to eradicate the barriers that often contribute to the cycle of poverty… that actually pretty aligns with what LIFT does here in northern Michigan.”
Sharp, who grew up in Suttons Bay and graduated from Suttons Bay High School, also had an opportunity in her senior year to go on a service learning trip to the Dominican Republic. She said looking back in a moment in time, the experience really changed the trajectory of her own life and why she does the kind of work she’s passionate about today.
“It’s really easy to feel like northern Michigan is the entire world. It’s such a beautiful community, there’s beautiful nature, there’s a lot of awesome activities and experiences to be had here, but there’s so much beyond northern Michigan too, especially when it comes to connecting with other people who have different lived experiences,” she said. “I think these teenagers, their eagerness to travel without really even knowing exactly what they’re going to do, speaks volumes to how much they crave to see other parts of the world and learn different ways of life. It’s really the best way to do it is just to go to a different community and be open to learning something and being open to your way of life being challenged a little bit…” LIFT Founder Bekah TenBrink and her husband, Gerald, as well as Beatrice Moreno, Suttons Bay School’s migrant specialist, will be the other three adult mentors accompanying students on the trip. The entire trip costs add up to $31,000 for airfare, passport purchases, lodging, meals, and $100 in spending money for each student. While the majority of the monies have been raised over the last year, Sharp said they’re in the homestretch now and are still looking to raise about $3,000 more to achieve their goal before taking off on April 13.
“This will be the first time doing a trip of this scale (for LIFT)…” she said. “Before I worked at LIFT, I worked at a similar nonprofit to Planting Seeds and I was kind of on the receiving end of dual exchange trips. When I joined LIFT, that was always kind of my hope that I could bring that passion that I had of leading those trips and seeing the students experience that too. That was six years ago now, and I know that was one of Bekah’s hopes with founding the organization with her husband — that we would really broaden their (students) perspectives. It’s been a really long time coming, but we’re really excited about it.”
To donate to the trip, go to www.liftyouthsb.com or call 231480-6006.
