AAI Youth Ambassadors in Costa Rica and Chicago

Here are Zaida and Kinley’s stories of their next two humanitarian trips this summer (after El Salvador) in both Costa Rica and Chicago!

Staying at Costa Rica’s animal rescue center was an experience unlike any other. You feel at one with the animals, eating the same fruits and vegetables, watching the same sunsets and being tormented by the same escaped monkey. We are taught mostly the differences between humans and animals, but this rescue center allowed for us to see the same necessities, emotions, and need for love these animals deserve.

At the rescue we prepared and delivered breakfast and dinner for the animals. There were various other jobs like cleaning the enclosures and collecting bowls from previous meals which we also helped with. On one of the days we spent the morning making toys for “enrichment”. All morning we tied coconuts covered in peanut butter to sticks and wrapped papaya in banana leaves for the Kuwaitis, raccoons and various monkeys. When we finally finished, we were able to deliver the gifts to them. Watching them explore the toys and play with them was so rewarding and goes to show the beautiful experiences Costa Rica’s rescue center creates.

For our third mission trip of the summer we decided to stay domestic and travel a quick 4 hours to Chicago. We spent time volunteering at Mission of Our Lady of the Angels. Also known as MOLA; an extremely successful company that serves food to over 400 people every single Saturday and Tuesday, which is then shared or distributed to family and friends, ultimately providing for over 1000 people in Chicago. We met sister Stephanie, who has raised over $2,000,000 in donations by running marathons, and helps run MOLA along with Bishop Bob. Sister Stephanie assigned us tasks and the pace assisting at MOLA was like no other mission trip before, it was really impressive how efficient everything was. Over the course of just two days, we were able to package apples, potatoes, carrots, cucumber, eggs, apples, tomatoes, sandwiches, sweet treats and so many other items of food. We were also able to assemble over 1000 backpacks to be donated to elementary school and high school kids for back to school.

The most impressive and honestly beautiful thing that MOLA was able to achieve was distributing pounds upon pounds of food to over 400 people, which as I said before, is then distributed among families. Customers come through with tickets and times, and then walk through the building met by volunteers who were distributing different items of food. We were stationed outside, and were in charge of packing up people’s cars and bagging all of the items which had a steady stream of people for around 3 hours. In those 3 hours one woman in particular pulled me aside and showed me a photo of her daughter, who was also my age but she passed away due to gun violence a few weeks ago. She thanked us for our hard work and also thanked MOLA because she wouldn’t have had access to food without them. The west side of Chicago is a lot brighter and healthier because of MOLA, their constant work and dedication to distributing food is extremely impressive, and we strongly recommend taking a quick trip to assist and feed people in Chicago.