CONWAY, Ark. (July 7, 2009) – The women of the Hendrix College softball team arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, with a mission: to improve the squalid conditions of the All Saints AIDS Camp. Eight players and their head coach, Amy Weaver, put their muscles to the test as they renovated the camp.

The overcrowded compound, once a leper colony, is home to dozens of children and adults living with AIDS. Most were abandoned by their families, left at the gates of the camp once their illness was discovered. The patients live in shacks, with rooms just large enough to contain a twin-size bed, and receive government-subsidized medicine.

“All the houses are run-down, so they’re trying to build more houses to have better facilities to live in,” said Meagan Alban, who coordinated the trip. “It was scary to see that these people could live there every day of their lives. Their immune systems are already compromised, so in those kinds of conditions they just get sicker. It was heartbreaking.”

The women, including a Hendrix basketball player who tagged along, worked hard to improve the standard of living at the camp, splitting their time between rebuilding the crumbling sidewalks and constructing new houses. The sidewalks were an obstacle for many of the camp's residents, who are weak and often need wheelchairs to get around, so the team worked hard to complete a new cement walkway.
 
“Being in shape for softball translated into being able to do a lot more work. They were surprised that we could carry one bag of cement each, because they weigh 95 pounds. On the housing construction site we had sledge hammers going to crack up the walls, and hammers, and we were lifting tons of boards,” Alban said. “Coach Weaver is a coach who really pushes us, and we all pushed each other to help other people. We worked as hard as we could to get the work done.”
 
A few of the camp residents pitched in to help, but most were too ill for physical exertion. Those who were mobile enough to leave their beds sat on their porches and shouted encouragement to the volunteers.
 
“They were an inspiration,” she said. “I think we learned more from those people than what we gave back to them. We gave a lot, and we got so much back through support and worship.”

The team brought bags of clothing donations, as well as some special presents for the children of the camp. The girls were given hair barrettes, and the boys received yo-yos. The team also bought mosquito coils, bug spray and butane fuel for the residents, who could not afford those necessities.

Shocked by the conditions of the camp, several players also left their tennis shoes at the camp, so some of the residents would no longer have to go barefoot.

"I even gave away my watch," Alban said. "We figured it was stuff that they needed more than we did."

The team also brought hundreds of pounds of softball equipment – uniforms, bats, balls, helmets and gloves – which they donated to the Bahamas Softball Federation.
 
Alban, who is president of Hendrix’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, began planning the mission trip last August. She and the other softball players volunteer frequently, both independently and as a team, so she wanted to create an affordable mission opportunity for her teammates.
 
The mission trip was sponsored and largely funded by the Hendrix Odyssey program, a curricular program that offers funding and credit for students’ experiential learning projects. The players each earned an Odyssey credit in the Service to the World category.
 
The players involved included:

• Senior Meagan Alban, an early childhood education major from Allen, TX
• Junior Ellen Burr, an accounting major from Jacksonville
• Sophomore Amanda Dolph of Baker, La.
• Junior Frances Goodrich of Bella Vista
• Sophomore Jessica Mabry, an allied health major from Russellville
• Junior Brooke Monson, an allied health major from Wetumpka, Al.
• Sophomore Monica Sitzer, an economics and business major from Weiner
• Sophomore Jamie Sterrenburg of Cabot
• Sophomore Kaylen Stevenson, an allied health major from Conway

Hendrix, founded in 1876, is an undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.

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