Annie Kelly and Claudia Bacon are juniors at Winchester High School in Winchester, MA. Annie and Claudia traveled with STW in 2013 with 4 other students. Both have continued to volunteer with STW; working in the office, sharing experiences at the annual Board meeting and participating at the annual area fundraiser. This year, they helped grow STW's Boston area trips to over 30 students who raised enough money to fund three primary schools in Guatemala in 2014.
If you asked us to try and choose a picture that defined our week, we would choose this one. Not only did this trip bring us closer to the community and make us feel like better people, but it brought us closer to each other. We went on this trip knowing a few of the kids really well, and the other ten or so we did not know at all. We came home with sixteen new best friends and people that we could not imagine our lives without. The smiles on our faces in this picture prove just how much fun we had and how close we became. This was the second-to-last work day in the community, and probably the messiest. We worked so hard that day to try and finish as much of the school as we could, and the picture is the result. We worked so hard there was not a place on our body that was not covered in paint. That picture not only shows hard work and dedication, but ten people having a great time. We can honestly say that if we were short even one person, the school would not have been the same. Everyone brought something different to the group and to the school, and because of that all of us had an amazing time. We have become so close with the eight other people in our group, that we refer to ourselves as a family. We cannot imagine our lives without this trip, but more importantly without the amazing friends we made and the bonds we created.
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