MISSION TRIP 2024

We have been blessed with immeasurable talent and treasure and each day we work hard to build the infrastructure necessary to improve the communities we serve. There are, however, those around the world who struggle every day for the basic necessities we take for granted – clean water, healthcare, education, communication – the same essentials that we work to deliver every day on every project we build. It is ingrained in Shook’s culture to assist those in need, to have the courage to step outside our comfort zone and do good for others. Our Mission Trips send a group of Shook employees to a part of the globe where people truly lack the infrastructure that we can help provide. Not only do they assist a struggling community, but they also instill a global perspective in our employees, continuing to embolden our core values of Passion, Balance, Courage, Opportunity, Responsibility, and Fun.

This is our third company Mission Trip in an effort to make our Mission global. In 2019, we sent a team to Timusi, Bolivia to improve their water supply system and provide safe drinking water to the remote mountain village. In 2022, we sent eight employees to Mucombeze, Mozambique to build new, on-campus teacher dormitories for a remote school. In 2024, we look forward to serving on our third continent to further our Mission!

Shook is partnering with GROW (Grace Refuge Outreach Worldwide), an Ohio-based non-profit organization based in Wooster, Ohio. GROW owns and operates a mission located in northern Thailand in the Wiang Pa Pao district of Chiang Rai. The organization’s mission is to rescue at-risk children, restore their broken lives, and equip them to impact their families and communities.

GROW believes that the best way to stop child trafficking is prevention; therefore, they work in the communities that are most at risk. The children GROW rescues from abusive situations – which often lead to child slavery or sex trafficking – do not qualify for other children’s homes. Their staff works to research, identify, and provide the legal paperwork to bring a suffering child under the protection of their organization. When the children first come to GROW’s campus, they have not had their basic needs met. Lack of shelter, food, clean water, and medical care put children at risk of being sold. It also makes ill the body, mind, soul, and spirit of a child. GROW works to heal the whole child by nurturing them inside the love of a family. GROW’s staff provides for their physical needs with healthy food grown on campus, clean clothes, a real bed, quality medical care, physical exercise, clean water, and more. They teach them how to protect themselves. They also pay for the children’s education.

Though GROW recently expanded, they are again at capacity and are in need of an additional girls’ home to be able to take in more children. Shook will send 10 associates to help construct a portion of this new home, which will house 12 children. Our team will work alongside GROW’s local contractor to approach the work. The contractor began clearing the land in December 2023, the start of the dry season, and it is expected that our team will help with masonry when we arrive in mid-February.

Travel to GROW's campus will be multifaceted. Our team will fly from their respective U.S. airports and meet in Minneapolis. From there, the group of 10 will have a 14-hour journey to Seoul, South Korea. Our crew will then take another 6-hour flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where GROW staff will pick them up from the airport. They will stay in Chiang Mai that evening, receive a cultural orientation the next morning, and then take a two-hour truck ride to GROW's campus in Wiang Pa Pao. Upon arrival in Wiang Pa Pao, we will be staying in a local hotel approximately 10 minutes from GROW’s campus.

February 15 - Depart for Thailand 

February 16 - Arrive in Thailand 

February 19 - Begin work on the girls' home

February 24 - Wrap up all work on the girls' home

February 29 - Arrive Back in the United States