On Saturday, May 12, 2007, it was once again time for the Community Service Challenge, organized by the Centre in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Belmopan.

Was it the hard work of last year's Challenge which scared of many participants to try again this year to be crowned Community Service Champion? It certainly did not deter 50 young Belmopan students from making a tremendous effort and tackle the tasks at hand! With the judges present at each location looking out for qualities such as team spirit, leadership and organization, courtesy, task completion, creativity, punctuality and preparedness, 5 teams of 10 (including two adult leaders) rolled up their sleeves and accomplished the following:

Team World Citizens of the Baha'i Faith of Belmopan held a food-drive for the Belmopan Branch of the Red Cross. Not only did they gather a humongous box of non-perishables for the Red Cross's feeding programme and emergency supplies. They also collected close to $400.00 in monetary donations from the good folks of Belmopan. The young team had to improvise a lot and it was great to see their spirit rising at the occasion.

Marla's Angels of Marla's House of Hope teamed up to clean the public library of Belmopan. Always in high spirits and ready to work, the Angels did not wait around for the library to open... Instead they started cleaning the yard and all around the building. Once the library opened and the dust had settled in their dust pans before the closing time of the Challenge, they headed out the hospital to assist the team working there!

No job was too big for the Roaring Creek Church of the Nazarene - Youth Group 1. They armed themselves with rollers and brushes, and painted the outside walls of King's Children's home. The boys went for the big surface with their rollers, while the girls managed the more secure work around the windows and burglar bars with their brushes. We can assume that next time the "rolls" will be reversed???

The judges of the Rotary Club hardly managed to see the start of the works by the Youths Community Helpers of the United Evergreen Primary School... by 7.45 this team was well on its way to dig in the dirt of the yard of Marla's House of Hope to accomplish a landscaping project there. The team of young students and their teachers dug in the dirt; hauled rocks for plantbeds; whitewashed the rocks; carried over 800 pounds of black soil to its designated areas; planted close to 50 plants... and still managed to smile while doing this work in the scorching sun!

One would think that the Youth Group 2 of the Roaring Creek Church of the Nazarene were lucky enough to have a task involving lots of water on this hot May-day. But whosever knows the length of the corridors of the Belmopan hospital would think twice of accepting the job of cleaning these from top to bottom, hundreds of window lovers included. But here too was no team of quitters. In the nick of time, and with a little help of the Angels, the hospital corridors were brilliantly sparkling.

At the award ceremony held at the George Price Centre for Peace and Development, the organizations that received help from the young participants expressed their heartfelt thanks for all the work accomplished that day, while the students also had a chance to give a firsthand account of their experiences. Special guestspeaker for the occasion was Sam, a Trekforce Worldwide volunteer who is currently working in Belize with his team.

Maybe the most grueling task of all was left for the judges to choose a winner of this Challenge. But adding up all the points here and there, it was the team of the UNITED EVERGREEN PRIMARY SCHOOL that went home with the trophy. It should be noted that they are the very first team to see their names on the trophy for a second time, as in May 2006 they shared first place with Marla's Angels. Congratulations to the winners and the brave participants of the Challenge May 2007. Once again, all have proven that
Together Everyone Achieves More! Who will be up for the next Challenge?