Hot Springs School Superintendent Stephanie Nehus recently returned from Guatemala, where she helped build a school out of sustainable materials as part of a Lifetouch Memory Mission trip.
The journey, which took place Jan. 17-24, was Lifetouch's last such trip and featured 40 educators and company employees from across the country who volunteered to help build a sustainable school out of plastic bottles.
Nehus said every year, Lifetouch, a company that provides professional photography services for schools and businesses, speaks at the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators Conference where it shares a video of the previous year's memory mission along with a QR code to be able to apply for the next year's mission.
Nehus had applied three different times before finally being randomly selected as the only representative from Arkansas.
Video not playing? Click here https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Y0NE2ZoyCY
"I had applied last year when they went to Guatemala and then when I saw they were going back to Guatemala to do the bottle school, then I thought, 'You know, I've always wanted to do a mission trip. To get to do one that was education-centered and building a school just seemed like something I would really like to do,'" she said.
She said it was really an "awesome" experience to bring 40 people together who, in essence, did not know each, but very quickly became lifelong friends.
Lifetouch partnered with Guatemala-based Hug It Forward, which builds educational buildings using plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash or eco-bricks.
Hug It Forward "met us at the airport in Guatemala City with hugs, literally," Nehus said. "From the minute we stepped foot on Guatemala soil, they had a team that was with us all along the way. So you had the 40 people from the U.S. but then you had this other team that became our family, too."
Nehus said the whole mission of Hug It Forward is sustainability. Guatemala, she noted, is a developing country and does not have trash services like the U.S. does.
"Part of the bottle schools is to help with the environment and to help with the trash that builds up in the country," she said.
The community prepares the bottles beforehand by collecting plastic water, soda, and other types of drink bottles. Then, nonorganic trash is collected and stuffed in those bottles. She said it takes 100 small chip bags to fill one plastic bottle to create an eco-brick.
An ecobrick is a building block made entirely from unrecyclable plastic that is created by filling a plastic bottle with clean, dry plastic until it is tightly packed. The volunteers use a piece of rebar to stuff and compact the materials into each bottle.
"It's very eye-opening because I'm in the middle of a building project right here," she said.
While the Hot Springs School District's new 140,000 square-foot, three-story high school building is costing $38 million to build, the three-room schoolhouse she helped build in Guatemala costs about $25,000 she said.
"It was very eye-opening. We are very blessed here in the United States, here in Hot Springs School District, and that was really humbling to be a part of," she said.
Hot Springs School Superintendent Stephanie Nehus visits with a young girl in Guatemala during her recent mission trip. (Submitted photo)
Hot Springs School Superintendent Stephanie Nehus talks about her experience going on a Lifetouch Memory Mission trip to Guatemala, Wednesday, while in her office. (The Sentinel-Record/Lance Brownfield)