Lion Laborers Explore Community Needs in Civol, Haiti

When the St. Andrew’s ambassadors to Haiti touched down in Port Au Prince on Wednesday, one of its delegation was senior Ethan Lockshin, a founder of St. Andrew’s community service organization, the Lion Laborers. 
“I came up with the idea of creating a community service-oriented group during the first week of school in the fall of 2012. I had just gone on the Chicago trip. I loved what we were doing there. I wanted to do something to benefit other people,” says Lockshin.
Operating from a motto of “Our Pride Serves Others,” the Lion Laborers have in less than two years cemented a legacy of service that St. Andrew’s can be proud of and the people of Civol can be thankful for.
2014 is a new year and one filled with great possibilities for the Lion Laborers, a group Lockshin founded with fellow senior Sean Hess. The group has seen tremendous growth in little over a year and continues to set high goals for itself in terms of outreach, philanthropy, and providing valuable free labor to those within the St. Andrew’s community not to mention helping the people of Civol, Haiti.
From its inception, all the donations the Lion Laborers has received for its work has been earmarked exclusively for helping St. Andrew’s partner school in Civol, the Christ Roi School. With over 400 community hours logged to date, the Lion Laborers has raised $17,000.00 for the school with an overall goal of having raised $20,000 in total by the end of this academic year.
Reaching this lofty goal seems likely for the group considering that it has gone from fifteen to twenty dedicated members during the 2012-2013 school year to more than 130 students signing up this year to volunteer. With 25-30 members consistently volunteering, the Lion Laborers have done landscaping, leaf blowing and raking, tree trimming, moving storage, helped relocate a Bethesda store, and built a large retaining wall for a St. Andrew’s family. This year alone, it has raised nearly $10,000.00, more than twice what it had raised last school year.
According to Lockshin, the Lion Laborers’ goal is to help out three groups. “We simply want to aid the local community in getting work done cost effectively. We also want St. Andrew’s students to benefit from the experience of community service. And, most importantly, we want the students of Christ Roi to be able to better themselves through their education.”
Led by Lockshin, Hess, and Amberleigh Ray, a senior who is the organization’s team coordinator and volunteer organizer, the Lion Laborers has effectively utilized social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.com to solicit volunteer opportunities from the greater community. In addition, it has a professionally designed webpage as well as produced a documentary about its work in order assure that its mission is seen by the public.
As Lockshin states, “We hope that through our publicity as well as an already established great work ethic we will continue to put St. Andrew’s students to work for the benefit of the Haitian people.” He also noted, “At this point, we are confident we will be able to raise enough money from our work to help in the purchase of solar panels for the roof of the Christ Roi School to help provide electricity for not only their lights and the newly purchased computers but also the well which is currently being dug.”
For more information on the Lion Laborers and how you can help, please visit http://www.lionlabor.org/Home_Page.html
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool (Age 2) through grade 12, located in Potomac, Maryland.