Needham Students Build Classrooms, Foster Learning 2,000 Miles Away

March 2, 2026
• A group of nine Needham High School students spent a week of their February break building classrooms and playgrounds in Guatemala, culminating in a significant milestone for the service organization they traveled with.

Upon arriving in Tululché II, Guatemala, American students were greeted with cheers and festivities, but also a sense of perspective. Their education, lifestyle and financial status appeared in sharp contrast to those of Guatemalan children, who awaited the completion of new classrooms and playgrounds.

For Nina Barzilay, a junior at Needham High School, that perspective switch is “hard to put into words.”

“Being there is such a change from your home life. And obviously we’re so privileged to live in towns like Needham and in the surrounding area,” Barzilay said. “It was just really amazing to kind of see that priority of education.”

The week-long service trip with School the World, a Boston-based nonprofit, ended with the organization’s 200th school dedication on Feb. 20. It’s a milestone reached by thousands of volunteers, as well as crucial community partnerships in Panama, Guatemala, Honduras and most recently the Philippines, Founder and CEO Kate Curran said.

About three dozen students spent the week in the community, working with parents and community leaders to finish the building of the school. They completed the two playgrounds from start to finish and put the finishing touches on two classrooms. Students said the work was, at times, intense: They made cement by hand, dug holes to pour the cement, painted murals, taught in a class for a day and made a home visit.

Spending time in one family’s home made a particular impact on NHS sophomores Owen and Cal Hammerstrand. The home life and conditions they saw differed greatly from their own, they said.

“It really stood out to me and impacted me greatly,” Owen Hammerstrand said. “Every minute that we got to do the school and try to build something that will last and that will work towards the community in the future that they have there really is special.”

Watching Tululché II leaders cut the ribbon and officially open the school, and seeing the children’s excitement, is a stand-out moment for Cal Hammerstrand.

“It was the sign that we were passing on the classroom, what we worked on, to them,” he said, “and it would be a school for them in future years to come, and even this year.”

Curran’s own service trips, prior to founding School the World, didn’t carry the same impression. During a volunteer trip to Tanzania, she recalled visiting one classroom where 12 students shared two pencils. The moment became further ingrained when she returned home and found she was sent a pen with her name on it. “I thought, ‘This is really crazy that we live in a world like this,’” she said.

While that trip, she said, didn’t make much of an impact on the community there, it sparked an idea. She later founded School the World in 2009.

“We weren’t really contributing anything of real value, but I remember thinking, at the same time, what an amazing experience this would be for young people to see this and to have a new sense of appreciation for how lucky we are, just by virtue of being born in the United States,” Curran said. “When I decided to start School the World, from the beginning, I made this part of our mission to promote advanced global citizenship.”

Curran said she designed School the World very differently from her previous service trips, prioritizing tangible contributions the community wants and values. Volunteers attend a series of seminars to learn about the country, the state of education globally and about fundraising — a group of about 25 kids raises enough money to fund the construction of a classroom and playground, Curran said.

The partnership between School the World and NHS began about 10 years ago, and the school has since become one of the largest feeders of the program, Curran said.

Will Grannan, an NHS counselor and coordinator for the district’s Community Service Learning, said volunteering allows students to learn how to support and contribute to the health of a community or group, as well as understand how to fundraise, step out of their comfort zone and “make connections beyond their immediate sphere,” he said.

Needham High School students are required to complete 60 hours of service, 30 of which must be with the same organization. Grannan said those hours are “more than just a requirement.”

“They’re better understanding the world and community that they’re living in,” he said. “More significantly, more importantly, we see they start to understand both the impact of giving back to a community and how that is a part of how we grow as people and grow as individuals, by serving others or partnering with others.”

School the World contributes to that mission of connection and impact on other people, he added. Students who join the organization “come back very positive” about their trip, he said.

Back home, the Hammerstrands volunteer with Cradles to Crayons, another child-centric nonprofit based in Boston. They both said the trip may inspire them to spend more spare time with a focus on helping those in need.

For Barzilay, the trip confirmed her desire to become an elementary school teacher. While there, visiting students taught Guatemalan students English words, like colors, numbers and animals. She visited Panama with the organization last year, where she remembers a particularly poignant moment with one of the local children.

“I remember one of the boys told me that he walked two hours to school every day and then back home. That washed over me,” Barzilay said. “The meaningfulness of all the education that they were putting at the forefront of their life was just amazing to me, and I thought it was such an interesting and important thing for us to be there and help out with that.”