The Ceiling at Lonoy Elementary School

Carlo and John screwing support beams to the ceiling.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

One of the first projects that I did outside of the hospital was working on the Lonoy Elementary School Kindergarten classroom ceiling. When the team originally arrived to the structure, classes were still being held in this room despite a bowed and broken ceiling. The rafters and support beams were distressed and falling. First, the team led by Carlo and John removed the damaged ceiling structure and salvaged as much reusable wood as possible. Then they commenced restructuring the beams and supports.

John and Joe hammering in additional support for the plywood ceiling.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

This is where I joined the project. Just finishing the beams and supports, John's friends back in Australia donated some money to the project. John used this money to purchase plywood that was not originally funded in the project scope through All Hands.

Over the course of the day, we had to add extra wood beams so that we could secure all the plywood to the roof structure. Then we started nailing in the plywood sheets as evenly and securely as possible. The first day we only managed to tack in three plywood panels. The next day we added the rest that we had on hand and still required six more to complete the work. The volunteers back on base pitched in enough money to purchase the remaining panels and complete the ceiling in the classroom.

Kids, including Neil, always found a way to sneak in the room.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

While we worked, school kids would constantly wander into the room to see how the project was coming along. Sometimes they brought us flowers - that poor school grounds must have been picked bare by the time our work was done there. Many times we would receive notes of thanks from different classrooms, individual students, teachers, and staff. I received several from nine year old Neil who professed his love to me several times over!

Maybe the best part of working at Lonoy Elementary School was snack time. Clearly, if the kids are getting breaks and snacks, so should the volunteers who are helping out. On one day we were the grateful recipients of a stir fried meal with an entire loaf of white bread for the four of us workers. We ate our fill of it all and then some that day - along with a traditional bottle of Coke.

Lonoy Elementary School always provided good snacks while we worked.
This 'snack' nearly constituted an entire meal.
© 2014 Andrea Rip

Working at schools was rewarding because the students are always there. We could always see the kids we were benefiting and they always expressed their gratitude, asked us our names, tried to provide help, and pummeled us with questions about why we were there and our personal statuses. The teachers and staff were always full of smiles as well and treated us with a great deal of respect for the work we were doing so that they could move out of their tent classrooms and back into their normal rooms. It was not hard to feel really good about finishing a days work at a school!

Nearly finished with the project, the school presented us with a 'thank you'
banner in gratitude of all the work we performed. We also snapped a photo
to remember the day.
© 2014 Andrea Rip