Our annual Back 2 School project continues to be one of our most successful projects. Our members and volunteers prepare a day full of fun and educational activities for a selected group of children. Each year it is evident that the children enjoy this day to the fullest. This project usually takes place in August, prior to the start of the new school year. The goals of the project were to provide 30 kids with a back to school package. Basically prepare them for the coming school year and new challenges they are about to face as teenagers.

We did a community needs assessment and have changed the target group this year for the 26th edition of this project. Usually we focussed on elementary school children, this year we focussed on less fortunate tweens between the ages of 12-14.

This was an External project the benefactors of this project are parents/families of said tweens/kids, the nation benefits indirectly, on the long run, foreseeing more educated citizens. No other Organizations were involved in this project besides our sponsors.

 

The project had help from the Interact Club and Rotary Club of Aruba (gift packing day and event day) and the Rotary Club of Aruba who gave a lecture on sustainability of our environment.

 

 

Growing together promotes growing as a community, education is the basic right of every child and therefore it relates to our club theme, we inspire our community to give back via collections and we worked together with Rotary and Interact on the project reminding ourselves on the WeR purpose.

In contrast to previous years, this year we had a different target group, namely Tweens (age 12-14).  As well what was different is the event itself, besides collecting in the community for supplies, we also organized a more elaborate event for the tweens.

 

The event day began with Rotaractors picking the tweens up from home, bringing them to the pier where they took a boat ride out on the ocean to afterwards embark a submarine ride. After the submarine ride they went back on the boat and to shore. 
 
 
 
 
Once at shore we brought the kids to a private Villa for a poolday where they had fun and also had lunch and snacks, a photobooth, an eye exam by a local opticien, a lecture on sustainability and entertainment. At the end of the day they received their complete gift package.

 

 

 

Our objective was reached in regards to our goals, we gifted a total of 23 complete gift packages to  tweens including a hard cased backpack with school supplies, clothing (2 uniforms, 1 jeans, underwear,  socks, shoes, 1 t-shirt) as well as a care package (deodorant, shaving cream, razors, panty liners,  hand sanitizer, mint, lotion etc.).

Reusable personalized water bottle and reusable eco friendly bag.

Aside of this we gifted 52 extra gift packages. These consisted of a backpack with school supplies, small care package, reusable water bottle and as well 4 of these kids received sneakers.