As the Project SPAMMY® bus drove through the Guatemalan countryside, Kendra Crotteau looked out the window and wondered if the kids she was seeing might be her brothers and sisters.
“It was mind-blowing,” the 13-year-old says. “To think I could have been one of those children. It’s so different from where I live.”
Kendra was adopted as an infant by Keri and Kevin Crotteau, a family from Cameron, Wis. “She came home when she was 5 months old,” says Keri, who works as a corporate purchasing manager for Jennie-O Turkey Store. “So, obviously she doesn’t remember living in Guatemala.”
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Kendra poses with a student in Guatemala.
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The Crotteau family.
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Kendra works with a student at one of the chispa centers.
Making the trip “is the best thing that’s happened to us,” Keri says, not including having Kendra join the family. In that regard, memories of learning she would become their daughter came flooding back.
Keri remembers vividly being at work when she received an email from the adoption agency. Attached was a photo of a newborn baby girl. She forwarded the email to Kevin and called him immediately. “We counted down and opened the photo together,” Keri says. “When I saw her face, I somehow knew she was our daughter.”
Kendra was underweight at birth, a reality Project SPAMMY® is working to combat. The Crotteaus sent clothes for Kendra and made arrangements for her to live with a Guatemalan family – versus an orphanage – until she was “ready to come home” to Wisconsin.
Now an eighth-grader, Kendra is thriving. “She has a huge personality. She loves theater, choir and band. She plays softball and runs track,” Keri says. “She’s just a well-rounded, happy kid.”
She’s also a tenderhearted one, who would return to Guatemala “in a heartbeat.”
“I wanted to see where I’m from, [and also,] I wanted to give them something. Like SPAMMY®,” she says.
“It feels so awesome to give back. Why wouldn’t everyone want to do it?”