A Scran­ton, Penn­syl­va­nia high school stu­dent was pro­filed on his vol­un­teer work for a Christ­mas time story. Adam Schroth trav­eled to Belize to help fam­i­lies build stoves and wells. Schroth attends Scran­ton Prep school where they require seniors to do ser­vice for graduation.

From The Scran­ton Times Tri­bune, writer Joby Faw­cett asks Schroth about his time in Belize.

Before he even headed to Belize, Schroth had an idea that what he would encounter would hardly resem­ble life at home.

Once there, he saw the poverty, but the out­go­ing per­son­al­ties of the peo­ple who endured the more than 100-degree tem­per­a­tures, the gravel road­ways and the tiny liv­ing quar­ters over­whelmed him.

The stu­dents had to be mind­ful of scor­pi­ons, snakes and many other ani­mals. They walked more than three miles to and from work.

After the sun went down, Schroth and his class­mates — Paul Byrne and Jimmy Fitz­Patrick, who are also play­ers for the Cav­a­liers — slept in ham­mocks with bed nets draped around them for pro­tec­tion from mos­qui­tos and the malaria they could carry.

Yet he endured and enjoyed every minute he got to spend with his fam­ily and the eager and ener­getic children.

“Basi­cally, we lived with a fam­ily in small huts and helped them build water reserves and stoves,” Schroth said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was going to be intense. I was some­what ner­vous, but also very eager.

“I couldn’t believe the way they were liv­ing in those huts. They were 10-feet long and 4– or 5-feet wide. The vil­lage was so iso­lated, but the peo­ple were so gra­cious and so nice.”

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