Arroyo Seco

One of the projects that Hero Holiday has been working on for the past three years is in a village called Arroyo Seco. Anyone who has ever been on a Hero Holiday, has an automatic attachment to this village. It started with digging the footings, and finished with painted tables and mirrols on the walls. It is a school/church/community center for a village that truely needs it.





It all started with Pastor Garcia. He is a very special man who shares his story with such compassion, that you are automatically attached to this project. Pastor Garcia had a dream. He wanted to make his village better by building a school, since most kids had to travel a far distance to attend school. This made it impossible for most people to go, since the village is so secluded, and they have no transportation to get there. Pastor Garcia had no money and no resources. However he continued having faith that help would come along, and had already begun digging a trench for the structure.





Vaden, co-founder of Hero Holiday met Garcia one day, and listened to his story. He decided that Hero Holiday could help. In 2006, the project was started, and by summer of 2008 we had finished it to the last detail. Hero Holiday had even began building a clinic right beside the school. Today, 80 children attend the Arroyo Seco School, and the number will continue to grow. Not only is there a school, but there is a place for the village to hold meetings, pray together, and have fun!

The Orphanage

The Orphanage
One of my favourite days during Hero Holiday is visiting the orphanage. It is an orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children who have all been abandoned by their parents. There are 70 children at this orphanage, some adults who have simply spent their entire life there and have nowhere else to go. Around half of these children’s backgrounds are unknown. Their names, their medical history, their story, is unknown.
There is one nurse to five children, and by the time the kids are fed, bathed, and cleaned up, it is time for the next meal, and the process starts all over again. That is where we come in. Hero Holiday sends a team almost every day during the month of July to the orphanage. We spend the day simply giving all of our attention possible to as many kids as we can. Understandably, the nurses do not have enough time to provide attention and stimulation to all of the kids all of the time.
So, this day is always full of fun! We spend our day playing with the kids, making them giggle and laugh as hard as they can. We also enjoy the opportunity to help feed them lunch. Although it can be quite a task sometimes, it is also quite an experience – especially if you end up with food back on your face too! After visiting the orphanage for the first time three years ago, I fell in love with the kids, and I have much admiration for them.

Bernard's Dream

Bernard is someone whom I admire very much. He is a very dear friend to anyone and everyone who has ever been on a Hero Holiday in the Dominican Republic. Bernard has worked with Hero Holiday for the past four years as a translator and mason. He is originally from Haiti, and speaks several languages. Bernard works with troubled children, and his dream is to have a home where he can take in street children and child soldiers temporarily. For the past five years Bernard has been working with orphans and children at risk, and he would love to be able to do more for them.
Bernard has demonstrated time and time again how dedicated he is to helping the poor, and has proven himself to be a very special person. Hero Holiday decided this past year to help Bernard build his home. It was an amazing site to work at, simply because we had Bernard running it. No matter how tired I was, or how hot it got, I was always so motivated to work on this project. Bernard is someone that I miss everyday when I am at home, and also someone I look forward to seeing next year when I return to the Dominican Republic.

The Dump

While in the Dominican Republic, I have spent a lot of time with refugees from Haiti. Particularly, the people who work in the Dominican dumps. A typical day for a dump worker would consist of beginning work around 7am, and finishing around 4 or 5pm. The workers spend the day collecting bottles – different colours, sizes, shapes are separated accordingly, although I have yet to figure out their system. For every giant bag they fill of bottles, the government pays them five pesos for that bag – which is equivalent to around 17 cents Canadian. On a good day, a worker may collect 4 or 5 bags. On a bad day, they might collect one. This is what that worker must live on to support their family. Less than 80 cents a day. How is it even possible to survive on this? I have been to the workers village, met their children and wives, and even attended their church service. The village is built up from scraps of anything they could find, and their daily source of food and water is non-existent. This is why we knew we had to do something. Although it’s extremely complicated to simply fix this problem, everyone can do something. So, during Hero Holiday, a team would go out to the dump everyday with fresh drinking water, knee high boots, and help collect bottles! I never thought that in my lifetime I would be picking through a dump in 40 degree weather with long pants on. However it was such an exhilarating experience. Each of us would work alongside our chosen Haitian partner, and just go at it. It got to the point where I was excited to see a bottle. It felt as though I had just won the jackpot if I found 3 or 4 at a time. In doing this, we helped to double or even triple our partner’s income for that day.
Everyone can do something – we can make a change.

Hero Holiday

Hi, my name is Melissa Bazely and I am a student attending Georgian College in Barrie. In summer of 2006, I travelled down to the Dominican Republic with a program called Hero Holiday, to participate in humanitarian work. It was such a life changing experience that I went back in 2007, and again this previous summer.

Over the past three summers in Dominican, I have participated in several projects like building schools, homes, visiting orphanges, and working with refugees from Haiti. My experiences have been unbelieveable, and it has become a part of my life. This is something that I plan to do for as long as I can.

I want to share as much as possible about the time I have spent in Dominican. I will post all of my pictures, and write about as many experiences as I can.

Everyone has the power to do something...we can make a change.