By Katie Wilson Powell

A summer of beaches, tasty food, sunshine and a chance to serve. That’s the vision Zan Johnson, Bailey Carpenter, Natalie Zimmerman and Madison Ermert focused on as they tackled yet another pile of soil. Though the group anticipated unexpected adventures during the eight-week service-learning experience in Dangriga, Belize, they never dreamed of the sweat equity, sheer exhaustion and laughter that would accompany their journey.

Charged with designing a model backyard garden that could feed families and raise a little extra cash, the team jumped in with both feet. They landed in a combination of chicken litter and soil, part of an effort to recycle waste to maximize yield. “We hated that pile of dirt,” joked Bailey Carpenter, an animal science major. She focused on researching poultry feed and monitoring the overall health of the chickens. Ermert, an international business major with a concentration in development, surveyed community members about their diet with the goal of providing nutritional information. Zimmerman, an international business major with a focus on economics, brought business expertise to the project, outlining the budget and available resources. Johnson, an industrial engineering and economics major, provided plans and built structures for the garden and chicken coops, while also helping to evaluate the overall sustainability of the project. Their different backgrounds and goals coalesced into a manual that will be used by single mothers in need of additional at-home income.

The team got up with the sun, worked in the garden, and helped each other on their respective projects. “When I’m in a classroom setting and I hear group project I think…ehhh. But when you have people who are all working toward the same goals, who genuinely want to make a difference, a group project becomes what it is supposed to be,” Carpenter said. An added twist: They conducted this work independently of in-country faculty oversight. Though economics professor Amy Farmer, thesis director for three of the four students and founder of the Belize partnership, was readily accessible, the team had to decide how to make decisions and form relationships in the community. While this independence presented challenges, the team supported each other and took turns filming chicken biopsies, distributing surveys, and moving coops.

“One thing that I felt was so important about this trip was the length. Being there for two full months made what we were doing seem so much more impactful,” said Johnson. All four cited the importance of total immersion to the overall success of their work. “Most groups that come to Belize are doing short-term, one-off projects. They give many things, and leave. Though this starts with the best of intentions, it tends to perpetuate the cycle of aid,” said Zimmerman. At first, Dangriga residents did not know what to think of such a long-term, invested project. “When I was doing the surveys,” Ermert explained, “there were a few times that they said, ‘oh—you’re still here!’ I think we gained their respect when they saw that we were there, we were sweating right alongside them.”

The university’s ties to Belize date back to 2007, when Honors College funding helped launch service learning there. Since that time, with student participation frequently funded by Honors College grants, the Belize program has grown to include faculty-led study abroad and independent service-learning research like the model garden project. “These students come away from this with so much more than they give,” said Amy Farmer. “To be there without me…is the point. To me, it’s a level of learning and application that really puts them out of their comfort zone and engages them in a different type of critical thinking.”