By Esha Pargas (YES 2019-2020, Suriname, placed with Aspect in Saratoga Springs, UT)

In honor for Global Youth Service Day (GYSD), YES alumni and YES virtual program students in Suriname spent four hours at the Esther Stichting Foundation cleaning the environment for people with disabilities.

The Esther Stichting Foundation is a residential community for people with disabilities dealing with leprosy. There are 65 residents between the ages of 50–80 who live there and have often been neglected by their own families. The foundation is supported by the government, civic groups, and other private institutions.

The goal of this project was to celebrate Global Youth Service Day and engage the virtual program students in their first community service project. We all contributed to the project by bringing some gardening tools to work with.

We divided ourselves into three groups, two of which helped clean the yard and one group that cleaned the residents' rooms inside the facility. At the end of the clean up day, we distributed snacks and conversed with the residents. Despite the rain, we completed the cleanup at Esther Stichting and made the people's day there a little brighter — and we had fun together!