The 2023 high school football season is just about two weeks away, but one local program has already made an impact off the field.
Fourteen senior football players from Addison’s Trinity Christian Academy (TCA) and their fathers traveled to Guatemala to help install wood-burning stoves (in place of open fires), water filtration systems, and other essential utilities as part of a volunteer opportunity through HELPS International.
The non-profit organization implements programs to help developing countries through community development, agriculture, education, and health care.
“My company has sent about 20 people a year down to Guatemala and installed stoves and water filters down there with the Mayan Indians in the highlands of Guatemala,” Scott Fish, one of the fathers who went on the trip and was the primary organizer, told The Dallas Express.
“We’ve had such a good time, and we just loved it so much,” he continued. “I thought it would be great if we got a bunch of us [who] have boys that are rising stars and seniors this year on the football team [to go]. We thought it’d be great if we just took every kid playing football that was going to be a senior this year, and we did that.”
The group took a seven-day trip, flying down to Guatemala City before making its way to Panajachel or “Pana,” where it stayed for the remainder of the trip. Each day, accompanied by employees of HELPS, interpreters, and a few Mayans, the team took the boat across the lake and hiked into the highlands to get to work on homes that HELPS had picked.
The players also toured one of the local high schools, where they played basketball and volleyball with local Guatemalan high schoolers and attended a prom.
Dallas investment banker Stephen Miller helped start HELPS in 1984 after visiting Guatemala during its civil war in the early 1980s. HELPS has completed 286,386 utility installations since then, with more than 535 student volunteers.
“This is one of those divine things that happened to you in your life if you’re lucky,” Miller told The Dallas Express. “It really does motivate you, and it allows you to believe that things can be done.”
Miller and Fish met through the HELPS program, when Fish began participating in the program through his company’s team-building efforts, which Miller says is a common way people end up participating.
“He’s been doing this for years through his company, and it develops a team camaraderie within his firm,” Miller said. “We have many corporations that do this … I think it just brings cohesion to the team.”
The process seems to have built cohesion within the TCA team as well. Both Miller and Fish agree that the players have a new perspective after what they experienced on the trip.
“I think it was good for our kids because they were able to see stuff and experience stuff, and I think they’re much more grateful about all the things they have and the blessings and opportunities they have because they saw some challenging things,” Fish told The Dallas Express.
“You had all the privileges you could possibly get from North Texas, and the kids were football players,” Miller added. “They had everything they could want, and they came down and got involved in a situation where people were poor, women die, and even kids fall into the cooking fires.”
Fish’s idea may have started a tradition, as younger players have already expressed interest in going themselves.
“It was the first time we’d done that, and they liked it so much they’ve already had junior players that some of the dads have come up to me, and they want to carry it forward and do it for their senior year,” Fish said.
