Toy Story Grenada Style
At first it was just a few toys for a few children in Grenada. Maybe the hotel workers kids, maybe a few kids on the streets. It was just a gesture of generosity at first. Posting this idea drew a very big response from our members that where going on the trip. It started a few months in advance so there was time for others to think about the idea. I would say the last few weeks before we left for Grenada this idea for toys for the Grenadian kids was growing rapidly. After several posts on the board and a number of PMs a total of 600+ toys where staged to be delivered to the children that we would be exposed to during our trip. As our first week in Grenada was in full swing there where mentions of what day we where supposed to do this delivery on. There was a lot of Toys there. And I didn’t know at the time that WW had already gone before us and was lining up a couple of orphanages to distribute the toys to. we where told as a group on Tuesday or Wednesday that at 9:00am in the morning on Friday we would all meet at the front desk where Keith our personal taxi driver would be waiting to take us on our tour of the island plus drive us to the orphanages.
9:00am Friday
As the group gathered with there bags of toys and the hotel workers where starting their day some of our members started asking the workers do you have children? What are their ages? Girl or boy? Some toys and school supplies where handed out right there at the hotel. After Keith laid down the backseats of the bus and loaded the toys and we where off. Nobody really said it but I'm sure most of us said in their minds Road Trip! Well we pulled up to the first orphanage and WW jumped out to greet Shirley to caregiver? She was shortly joined by Kathy Rosa Que Carla Michelle and myself. My first impression of the home was that it was very clean as well as the kids. Average age of the kids where 3 to 6ish. Shirley told us that some of the kids where in school at the time so we missed meeting them. Shirley also told us that this home was a temporary home till the main orphanage was finally rebuilt from hurricane Ivan which was do to be finished in Oct 2005. Several of us interacted with the children holding them and exchanging names ages etc.. We shuttled many bags of toys to Shirley's house and she told us that she would distribute the toys a little at a time to the kids so that they would last longer. We all agreed with her and we where just glad to be the deliverers. Now it was back to the Road Trip (whole different story
we traveled most of the major roads in Grenada that day and our return to the hotel Keith brought us by another orphanage. A few of us went in as a small group and met up with Sharon Davis the manager. I liked her right off the bat! She knew we where coming and had assembled the kids in an auditorium. She told us that the kids would really like to meet us. So it was back to the bus to announce that Hey the kids would like to meet us. Trey Carla Rosa Que Michelle Cathy WW and I assembled in the orphanages entrance. There Sharon told us to get our Slack Diver butts in the auditorium and bring the kids toys with you (gotta love Sharon) it was a short walk to meet the kids and I had no prepared speech to give them no promise of a better future. Well we walked in the with only our hands and words plus a big box of toys. We all went around shaking kid’s hands holding in our arms the smaller ones and sharing our names also. can you believe there was a young girl named "Kamala" also Rosa had pointed it out to WW and I think that made it kind of special for her. Sharon took us on a tour of the rest of the place going upstairs where they where just finishing the rooms so each older child could have there own rooms. Then it was back downstairs to the rooms that house the special needs children. This was getting pretty emotional at this point. I’m not sure how but there was children all around us and I saw Rosa holding at least 4 or 5 kids at once and that was precious! Everyone else was doing about the same thing. Well after that most of us returned the bus and I was talking with hawk on the outside of it and I was telling him about the generosity of our diving group. Then it came to me that WW and Michelle was still in the building...I thought the worst? WW was signing them up as future SD.comers Oh No so I went back inside as Michelle was just leaving and it was just WW and I. I turned to WW and gave here a big hug as I was just overjoyed with tears about our groups generosity and the helping hand they lent that day. I think WW was all teary eyed as well and she said that she would like to take 10 of the kids home with her. Sharon ask us if we where crying and we said yes! she said I did to when I first got here. This was so worth the little time and expense that I hope SD.com promotes more of these. I hear that you’re doing the same thing on the next Fiji trip 
B2B
please feel free to add your comments or experiances on this Toy Story
Edited by Bubble2Bubble, 16 September 2005 - 07:46 PM.
