Forrest Owen is one of seven students, and two faculty members, who visited Haiti last week to volunteer at the Be Like Brit Orphanage.
Forrest's mom, Kendra, tells us that he and the students, who attend St. John's in Shrewsbury, spent vacation week carrying five-gallon pails of cement up and down a hill to help put in a driveway at the orphange before the rainy season begins. In the afternoons and evenings, the students and faculty spend time playing with the 12 children at the orphanage.
Follow the Be Like Brit Facebook page to learn more about the visit, and the orphanage.
The Be Like Brit Orphanage was constructed as the result of a vision by the parents of Britney Gengel, who, on a trip to Haiti to volunteer, died in an earthquake that claimed an estimated 230,000 lives. "Britney had spent the day visiting a Haitian orphanage where she and fellow students from Lynn University, on a Journey of Hope, met the small Haitian orphans they had traveled so far to help," reads the description on belikebrit.org. "Just a few hours later, Britney, three of her fellow students and two Lynn professors were dead, crushed in the rubble of their hotel. Britney was 19, her body was recovered 33 days later."