"During Spring Break this spring semester, four brothers from Phi Kappa Theta took part in
our annual service trip to Santo Domingo. Each day at 8:30 a.m., we traveled 30 minutes through
the city to the Hogar Escuela Armando Rosenberg, a school and orphanage supporting children
from kindergarten to high school. Here, we would help the head groundskeeper, Antonio, with
any tasks that he needed to accomplish. This year, we spent our week deconstructing,
reconstructing, and painting a playground for the children. In addition to revamping the
playground set, one of our brothers, Nick Colucci spent the week painting a mural of the movie
Cars in the children’s bedroom. On the final day, we played the high schoolers in a pickup
basketball game with around one hundred kids watching and cheering.
This experience was very eye-opening, as it allowed us to recognize the privilege in our lives as
college students in the United States. All of the interactions we had with the children and staff at
the orphanage were beneficial for everyone, as the children were very excited to see Americans.
We hope that those we had the privilege of interacting with had as positive of an experience as
we did. Although we take great pride in the impact that four college students were able to have in
the matter of one week, the orphanage needs more support. We are incredibly fortunate to be
given the opportunity to travel to the Dominican Republic to have a week-long experience like
this. Hopefully, this trip is only the beginning of a lifetime of service that we, as a whole Lehigh
Community, can have on communities in need."
- Ryan Polizzi, Nick Colucci, Andrew Park, Steven Badillo
