My son Anderson Kreis (pictured on the right) does service hours for his BETA Club at Arlington High School. Last year, he did Pack for a Purpose at Beaches Negril and wanted to do it again for our first trip to Beaches Turks and Caicos. It’s a large project and he wanted to get as many donations as he could.
Anderson started off by looking online at the Pack with a Purpose website to see what the needs were for children in Turks. He evaluated the list and a few items really stood out because of where we live. He next had me create a Facebook post asking if anyone in our community had sports jerseys that they could donate. We have so many kids in sports here and wanted to start there. We immediately had a huge response to his Facebook request from our community! We were able to collect 50 jerseys just in that one day. More people in the community asked what they could do so we posted the list we found on the website.
He was able to collect tons of arts and crafting items, brand new board games, computer equipment, footballs, softballs, and much more. In total we packed a full suitcase that we paid to fly there, a full duffle bag, and items packed into our personal luggage! It was so incredible to see how our small community can rally to help people in need!
We stayed in the Italian Village and met with two amazing ladies the day we arrived. These two ladies displayed everything so beautifully and got photos with my kiddos. What made it so special was how the two ladies thanked them and told them how amazing they were. I have to say this was only our first day there and was one of our highlights of the trip.
I’ve always tried to keep our kids humble and to be giving people. It was an amazing experience and we will definitely be doing it again for Turks in 2023! The resort was so amazing that we rebooked while on property. Thank you to Pack for a Purpose for having this program available to help your country.