Every year, volunteers representing Sunflower Mission travel to Vietnam as part of our annual Work Camp to help complete a school in progress, teach workshops for local students and families, and present scholarships and gifts. Here, we document our reflections, thoughts, and lessons learned. Follow along.
by Ylan Dao
Hello! My name is Ylan Dao. This school year, I'm going to 7th grade at Pearland Junior High East. I am currently 12 years old. Today I cleaned class rooms, did paint touch ups, dusted window frames, and helped set up the library.
Read Moreby Carissa Nguyen
The majority of today was spent painting the outer walls of the elementary school we are building in the Lam Dong province. I have ruined yet another T-shirt, but we are now many walls closer to completing our goal! Getting closer to finishing painting also means that we were ready to start setting up the school’s library, and with it, a Lego display.
Read Moreby Dan Q. Dao
Yesterday, we finished painting and started cleaning up the yard for a new playground. See how day 3 of workcamp went out with this photo gallery.
Read Moreby Sebastian Nguyen
Today was a pretty fun day even though I probably spent a third of the day investing in a weaponized Lego shark thing.when I woke up this morning I was wondering what I was going to do today. When I got to the school site I was very stumped on what to do: painting, play with kids or aimlessly walk around. I then saw Dan sweeping all of the dust and then decided that I was at least going to do something productive today.
Read Moreby Kayla Tran
Today, I spent most of my time working on painting the SEEDS blocks. It was my first time painting anything, so I was very nervous. However, I had Hayley and Phoebe, among many others, to help and give me tips in order to make the artwork beautiful. The perfectly straight lines were difficult to achieve but with lots of tape and touch ups, we were able to get crisp lines. We still have some painting to do for that wall, but we ended getting a lot done. This was a fun new experience and I was happy to be able to try out painting.
Read Moreby Thanh Bui
Daily, a group of kids would stop by and play with SM work campers. Today was no different, except we had a young parent. As I approached to talk to her, her broad smile and excitement left little doubt how she feels about the newly built school.
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