My time spent in Ireland I have had the opportunity to do some amazing things- things far beyond what I fathomed for myself. Of all those things though, my community outreach project was probably one of my favorites and easily the most rewarding.

I had the opportunity to work with children ages 5 to 10 and be a kid again myself. We worked on craft projects like painting clovers with marshmallows and making a little Easter rabbit out of a styrofoam cup. Playing with the kids was all in good fun and I really enjoyed that instant and easy bond you get from children, however my favorite part was meeting the workers at the day care. Many were around my age, but I really bonded with Ashley who is a year older than I and wants to go visit the United States. She loves her job, her boyfriend, and was born and raised about 20 minutes just on the other side of Spiddal.

Setting up this experience was (I’m not going to lie) extremely uncomfortable. We sort of just meandered our way to the Day Care and just walked right through the front door. In America nothing like that would have been able to happen- three strangers just walking up and into a day care in the middle of the day? The cops would have been definitely called, but they weren’t in this case and we met Ashley for the first time and then Jane Marie (the boss lady, which is literally what they all called her) we all chatted for just a bit then set up the dates exchanged emails and looked forward to seeing each other again.

March 28^th was when we went back to the Day Care to do our styrofoam bunny craft. The older kids there seemed pretty unimpressed by all of it but the younger kids really enjoyed themselves. We chatted with Ashley and Jane Marie for quite a bit and had some tea with them, eventually they called us a taxi and we went back to Park Lodge for the day. The next day we went it was down pouring so we showed up soaking wet which of course they thought was quite funny just because the Irish always carry umbrellas and we still haven’t learned that lesson almost 3 months into this. We stayed and chatted and had tea which made us late (a word no Irish person truly understands).

Overall it was an incredible experience being able to connect with the kids and Ashley and Jane Marie, and I will cherish those moments as well as my time spent here in Ireland.

Unfortunately due to the fact that we were working with children we were unable to take photographs at request of the staff of the daycare.