Spring 2013 Work Teams

Preparing re-bar for guardrail project

Spring is a lot of fun at Pico Escondido. We have friends from all over the US come help us improve camp. This Spring we had seven teams: Michigan College Life, Floyd County (GA) Young Life, Trinity School (Durham, NC), Auburn (AL) YL, NE Grand Rapids (MI) YL, Alger Park Church (MI), and Winston-Salem (NC) YL, as well as a couple of friends from Colorado Springs. One of the challenges working with volunteer teams is not knowing much about their skill set or how hard they will work. This spring we had really hard-working teams that often exceeded our expectations.

Working on the new shop

We had a bunch of projects planned, as we had as many as 75 volunteers working at a time. Our biggest project was construction of a new shop. This will not only improve our maintenance capacity but allows us to move smaller shops out of our main lodge and office buildings to be able to use those spaces in ways that are more compatible with the rest of the building. The current wood shop, located in the main lodge (Cigua) will be converted in the future into additional housing. The current main maintenance shop is located in the building that houses our offices and camp kitchen. This space will be converted into an office for Vida Joven (YL field ministry in the DR).

Pouring the foundation for the kitchen extension.

Our kitchen is much better than it was a few years ago, but as we have added beds in the past two years, we needed to expand our food prep area to ensure we could provide food at the levels of quality, quantity, and hygiene that we desire. This extension will add about 150 square feet of space, which will include an additional counter for food prep and space for an ice maker.

Guardrail along road to gym

Screening sand for making mortar for guardrail project.

The guardrail project will not only keep vehicles safer as they drive down toward the gym and new cabins, but will also be a beautiful decorative touch and include lights for better getting around camp at night.

Improving camp landscaping

 One area in which work teams have consistently helped us is our landscaping. We are only able to have one full-time landscaper on staff. He is kept very busy mowing, raking and doing other landscaping maintenance. He has very little time for projects to upgrade our landscaping. Teams are wonderful help in this area. This Spring the main project was the garden in front of our offices. It looks wonderful!

Thinning out trees

Another great way in which work teams have helped us in the past couple of years has been thinning out trees. We planted thousands of trees in the early years of Pico Escondido. Most of those trees survived and are nice, but they block the views around camp and the main species we planted has a short lifespan in these rainy mountains. We removed around 30 trees this spring. We will later plant new trees of different species which are more strategically placed to protect our beautiful vistas.

Thank you, Spring 2013 work teams!

How do I take a work team to Pico Escondido?

First, take a look at this video about serving at Pico Escondido.

Taking a work team to Pico Escondido is probably the easiest international trip you can make. Young Life has a program called Young Life Expeditions which helps people do short-term service trips, both domestically and internationally. If you tell YLX that you want to do a trip to the Dominican Republic, they will give you information about how to get started, what you will need, guidance with fundraising, and help with flight reservations if you desire. As you get closer to your trip date and want to refine details, you will communicate directly with Pico staff. We will take care of all logistics in country, from food, lodging, and ground transportation, to projects, information about local ministry, and entertainment. 

For more information, go to Pico's US website. We look forward to having you come see us!