Halfway through her two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica, Dawn Block is coming home for a little vacation
Event offers look at Peace Corps and chance to help Jamaicans
By RANDY ERICKSON/Editor
Halfway through her two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica, Dawn Block is coming home to Onalaska for a little vacation, but it won't be a break from helping.
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The 1998 Onalaska High School graduate, with a lot of help from her parents, Dave and Dori Block, is putting on a fund-raising event called Jam Fest on Sunday, May 23, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Onalaska's Rowe Park.
Through Jam Fest, Block hopes to help people back home understand a little more about life in Jamaica. To that end, the event will feature music and visual artifacts from Jamaican culture, a multimedia presentation about the country and the Peace Corps and an authentic Jamaican "jerk" meal.
Rooster Andy's has been recruited to serve up a spicy barbecued Jamaican-style chicken with a side of coconut rice and beans, plus fruit punch and Jamaican coffee. Advance tickets are available for $12 at the Onalaska Center for Commerce and Tourism just west of Rowe Park. While limited walkup meals will be available, the only sure way to guarantee a Jamaican meal is to buy the tickets ahead of time.
Block's main work in Jamaica is at an adolescent care center that is part of the Manchester Health Department. Manchester is one of 14 parishes in the Caribbean island country of 2.6 million people.
The center was started by a previous Peace Corps volunteer, and Block is the third Peace Corps member to take the reins there.
An average of six youths per day visit the center, mostly to use the center's four computers to do their homework, but the center has a range of other resources meant to help adolescents stay healthy and out of trouble.
"My main goal at the adolescent care center is to make a safe and inviting place for teenagers to come and hang out so that they don't have to hang out on the streets and get into trouble," Block wrote in an e-mail from Jamaica. "I hope also to be an inspiring and helpful resource to any child or adult who comes to me with a question or an answer. I've learned to make my goals a little smaller so that they are more achievable in this slow-paced, change-resistant world."
In addition to badly needed money for the center, Block also hopes to collect books and literature related to adolescent health issues and other books teens might enjoy reading, plus school supplies such as pens, pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, colored pencils, glue, tape, scissors, drawing paper and coloring books.
People with books or school supplies to donate may drop them off at The Packaging Store in Onalaska on Hwy. 35.
