Milton High School Student Goes on Trip of a Lifetime

Derek Curley was told the trip would change his life. He was told it would be something he would never forget for a long, long time.

When the Milton High School student returned from his 10-day journey to the Dominican Republic for a Boston Red Sox-sponsored program to do community service in one of the world's baseball hotbeds, he got a new, good way of looking at life.

"It made me respect what I have," said Curley. "I realize how much more that we have here that we take for granted."

Curley and nine other teenagers from across the country were hand selected to go to the island to perform community service and play a little bit of baseball in July. He went through the process two years ago to go on the trip only to come up a little bit short.

But a eagerness to be picked and a desire to try something different kept him coming back this time around. The program directors narrowed their search to 50 kids from around the country and held face-to-face interviews with the youngsters on why they should be picked for the life-changing trip.

Curley made the cut.

"They gave us a written application and they asked us about the courses we take and our grades," he said. "There were also different questions of how we were leaders and leadership."

Curley and the nine other participants — from Massachusetts, California, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Ohio and Vermont — took off for a land unknown at the end of July.

The crew's job was to clear out an old baseball diamond that had seen better days next to a school and an orphanage. Curley said there were big bushes growing out of the field and that it took a couple of days to get a resemblance to a baseball diamond. Once they completed the clearing of the land, Curley and the crew painted the dugouts and walls to complete the mission.

While Curley and his peers were cleaning up the field, he said he couldn't help but notice a number of young kids licking their chops to play on the freshly made baseball diamond. Curley said that the Dominican kids had a real passion for the game, and they would play from sun up to sun down if they could.

"Kids would be at the field three hours early just waiting for us to show up," he recalled.  "When it would end they would stick around and try to play again. They didn't want to leave at all. It's all they wanted to do all day."

It wasn't all work for Curley and the other nine. At night, after the community service work was done for the day, the 10 participants would get to play a little baseball of their own against some of the local Dominican teams. The Red Sox have a baseball camp set up on the island, and the team opened up its venue to the American visitors.

Curley got to play against some of the best competition in the Dominican baseball camps, and said he got to face a young pitcher who tried out for the Washington Nationals just three days later.

"It was great baseball," Curley said. "Pretty much every pitcher we faced threw in the high 80s to low 90s. They just loved baseball."

When the crew finally had to pack up and head back home, they were honored in the pregame ceremonies before a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Curley got to meet some of the players and had a chance to sit down with Red Sox slugger David Ortiz for an extended period of time.

"Big Papi" asked the boys what they thought of the island and joked around with the 10 youngsters, according to Curley.

"He's wicked nice," Curley said. "He was joking around with us about the island food and he was just a real nice guy."

Curley realized what all those people were talking about when they said it would be life-changing trip. He said he has a great appreciation for the island and how many people cope with living conditions that are less than ideal.

"Three meals a day is normal for us but they get one or two if they are lucky," he said. "Our houses are much more advanced. You don't realize when you get there that it is so much different."

Curley said he took over 150 pictures during the trip, but the lessons he learned on the trip won't need to be remembered in a photograph. They will follow him for the rest of his days, just like he was told it would.