During a December 7, 2015, assembly, Caleb Rogers ’16 of Charlottesville, Virginia, shared images and thoughts from his summer excursion to Havana, Cuba. During his month in the island nation, Caleb studied Spanish, performed community service at the Episcopal Church of Cuba, researched private entrepreneurship, donated MadiDrop water purification devices, searched for connections to his grandmother who grew up in Cuba, and made many friends.

Caleb reported that he was struck by the hospitality of those he met in Cuba. He volunteered for the Episcopal Church of Cuba by helping create digital archives of print materials and found worship services to be a lively refuge from the daily challenges ordinary people face. "The hope that Christianity gave, at least for a few hours, washed away the hardships that these people knew in their daily lives," Caleb said. He also described witnessing history with church coworkers as they crowded around a small television to watch the Cuban flag being raised over the embassy in Washington, DC, on July 20, 2015. And he was struck by the admiration Cubans had for the United States, finding that many pinned hope for the future on the countries' renewed relationship. Most, Caleb said, shared the attitude one Cuban said was a common saying of his mother. “Bernardo,” she'd say, “those Americans are only good at two things. Movies….. And everything else.”

Caleb's service and learning experience was made possible by Woodberry Forest School's Noland Summer Fellowship program. His faculty adviser, Jairo Rivera, helped him arrange the trip and spent two weeks with Caleb in Cuba. The grant is funded by Lloyd “Bud” Noland III ’62, who established it with members of his family through the Noland Memorial Foundation in honor of his father. The program provides financial support to students who wish to pursue projects that, in Bud Noland’s words, “offer truly life-changing experiences to the very best Woodberry students.”