Submitted photo
CABARETE — A delegation from Mount Vernon Township High School poses next to a sign with the name of the municipality in the Dominican Republic where they worked during a business trip to the Caribbean nation. Delegation members include Azelia Badger, Susan Badger, Tylan Vance, Landen Lundegreen, Stephen Morris, Tori Hartman and Nick Hartman.

BY DAVID BELCHER

For the Sentinel

CABARETE, Dominican Republic – A delegation from Mount Vernon Township High School learned how to adapt to their surroundings during a summer work trip to the Dominican Republic.

Tori Hartman, a tour guide, said both the air conditioning and power at her hotel went out on the first night of the trip. “We felt miserable,” she said.

A week later, the hotel’s air conditioning and electricity went out again. This time, she said, the students got used to it, went to the hotel’s swimming pool and had a nice evening.

The delegation consisted of five MVTHS students and two accompanying adults who took the opportunity to travel to the Caribbean state with EF Tours.

Submitted photo
TUTORING – Tori Hartman, RIGHT, tutors a youth from the Dominican Republic during a mission trip by a delegation from Mount Vernon Township High School to the Caribbean nation.

Participants had to cover the cost of this trip themselves. It was not a carefree vacation. The students accumulated 30 service hours by working with girls in kindergarten through sixth grade in Cabarete, a community on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, through the Mariposa Foundation. The foundation defines itself as “developing sustainable solutions to end intergenerational poverty through girls’ education and empowerment.”

In the morning, delegation members tutored young women in reading, math, art and physical education, and in the afternoon they devoted themselves to painting a building, maintaining buildings, planting a garden and tearing up cardboard for compost.

The teens spoke Spanish, the language of the Dominican Republic, while the visitors from the U.S. spoke English. “That made it very difficult,” Hartman said. But she said the problem was mitigated with the help of tour guides.

The group had time for reflection each evening to “better understand and appreciate what we are doing there,” Hartman said. In their free time, the delegation members were also able to go to the beach, which was right behind their hotel.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” Hartman, a special education teacher at MVTHS, said of the trip.

First, she said that young people in the Dominican Republic go to school for four hours a day.

People in the Dominican Republic are only allowed to drink bottled water.

However, she said the delegation was “amazed” at how clean the country was. “There was no garbage on the streets,” she said. “They didn’t have much. But they were proud of what they had.”

“A beautiful nation,” she said.

“There was a lot of rice and beans” on the nation’s menu, along with home-grown produce like pineapples and sweet potatoes, Hartman said. For dinner, she said, the delegation ate more American-style fare like pizza, grilled cheese and hamburgers.

Good news for high school students interested in traveling abroad.

A meeting will be held on September 5th at 6pm for a 12-day business trip to Southern Thailand in June 2026. The meeting will be held in MVTHS Room B118. Participants can enter through the cafeteria door.

Hartman said participants do not have to be MVTHS students; however, they must be high school students.

In a statement from EF Tours about the Thailand trip, it says: “On this interactive tour to the south ThailandBreathtaking landscapes meet practical environmental projects. Explore the bustling streets of Bangkok, where ancient cultural traditions blend with a modern lifestyle. Experience this first-hand as you stroll between gleaming skyscrapers and wondrous temples. In Krabi, work with local organizations supporting endangered coastal ecosystems and learn about elephant welfare. Then relax on tropical, tranquil beaches surrounded by towering limestone cliffs.”

Submitted photo
PLAYING A GAME — Members of the Mount Vernon Township High School delegation play a local game with some local girls during their trip to the Dominican Republic. You sing a song and try to move your hand on a certain word before the person to your right can clap.