The most memorable part of Nate Lucyk’s trip to help build a schoolhouse in rural Kenya two years ago was getting to hang out with the local children. One image from an afternoon soccer game, in particular, stayed with him.

“I saw this one kid, maybe four years old, off to the side, playing by himself with a makeshift soccer ball consisting of rags and held together with tape,” says Lucyk, a 24-year-old advisor and division director in Chatham, Ont., with Winnipeg-based Investors Group Inc. “His clothes were torn, he had no shoes. But despite that, he just had the biggest smile on his face.”

Lucyk spent 10 days in southern Kenya in the summer of 2009, working on the construction of a one-room schoolhouse. He was part of a team of volunteers that included three other Investors Group advisors. The trip was organized by Me to We, a part of Free the Children, the Toronto-based aid organization that focuses on improving the lives of children around the world.

During the Kenya project, Lucyk and his fellow volunteers spent most of their time building the school — mixing cement and laying bricks. But the volunteers also had time to visit nearby areas, talk to local villagers and enjoy the feeling that they were making a difference.

“Giving the kids a chance to go to school, something they dream about, was really gratifying,” Lucyk says.

Lucyk, who had never been to Africa before that trip, first heard about the opportunity when a call went out nationally for volunteers from Investors Group, which supports the work of Free the Children. Lucyk, intrigued by the idea, signed up.

“I have been fortunate in many ways,” he says. “I feel a need to give back to help people.”

Lucyk was especially drawn to the principles and ideas behind Free the Children — founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger, then 12 years old, to fight child labour around the world — and Me to We, its sister organization.

“The idea behind Me to We isn’t about giving things away or throwing money at a problem,” Lucyk says. “It’s about educating, so people can have for themselves. With the school-building trip, we would be giving kids the ability to learn, to dream and to become something.”

Over the years, Free the Children has helped to build some 650 schools in 16 countries.

Before Lucyk could take the trip, he had to raise funds to help pay his way. He hosted a dinner — cooking all the food himself — at a local church, inviting family and friends, clients and colleagues. The dinner also served the purpose of getting the word out about the project.

“It turned into something of a community event,” says Lucyk, who, as division director at Investors Group, serves in the role of branch manager for three other advisors in Chatham and nearby Windsor, Ont.@page_break@After raising the funds and planning the trip, Lucyk and his group left for Nairobi. They spent a day in the Kenyan capital adjusting to the time, then boarded a local aircraft headed toward the country’s southern region, near the Tanzanian border. That trip was an experience in itself, Lucyk says.

“I heard this loud, unfamiliar noise emanating from the aircraft as we were preparing to land,” says Lucyk, who, having received some flight training in his teens as a member of the Air Cadets, became concerned.

Turns out the pilot was deliberately moving the landing flaps up and down, making as much noise as possible to scare away a herd of antelope that had congregated on the runway.

Once the plane landed and the volunteers arrived in the village, they settled down to the business of building the school. Days would start early, with the team of eight eating breakfast and heading for the building site. There, the volunteers worked by hand, mixing gravel, sand, cement mix and water together with shovels and moving it around the site with wheelbarrows.

In order to get the water, the team would have to head to a river about a kilometre away and walk back, uphill, with buckets strapped to their heads. Says Lucyk: “The kids themselves would follow us and laugh.”

The team laid the foundation for the building and then started building the rest of the structure. The work was overseen by an engineer, who was responsible for the construction of a number of schoolhouses to replace the mud huts that had previously served as schoolrooms. It took five days to finish the part of the project for which Lucyk’s group was responsible.

That left time for side trips, including a visit to a bead factory that had been started to provide work and income for women in the area.

“All the beads were made by hand,” Lucyk says, “out of local clay, baked in ovens and painted.”

There were also the soccer games, with up to 100 children running around and playing with the volunteers.

“They just wanted to be with us,” Lucyk says, “and were happy we were there.”

Now back in Chatham, Lucyk is planning to return to Africa with Me to We in the next year or two. This time, he is hoping to bring a larger group of advisor-volunteers. Says Lucyk: “It’s something that I encourage people to experience for themselves.”

Since the trip, Lucyk says, he has committed to do more charitable giving in ways both small and large.

“Whether it’s giving to your local food bank or getting involved globally,” he says, “it’s important to realize how fortunate we really are and to do our share to help others.” IE