David Law, Superintendent of Minnetonka Schools, was a member of the January 2023 Lifetouch Memory Mission. Law was chosen by Lifetouch to partake in this opportunity in the Fall of 2022 because of his affiliation with the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, an organization that Lifetouch supports. Law has a long history of service work, having held positions on the boards of the American Heart Association, YMCA Twin Cities North, and most recently, supporting the work of the Anoka-Hennepin Foundation.

Lifetouch celebrated more than 20 years of Memory Missions by bringing a team of volunteers to Guatemala where the volunteers helped to build an environmentally responsible school out of plastic bottles.

"Working side by side with educators from across the country, as well as students and staff from Aqua Escondido in Tecpan, was truly incredible. It was during their vacation, but the students were thrilled to be with us,” Law said. “This trip serves as a reminder of the incredible opportunities present in our schools, and to me, it solidifies why I entered education leadership more than 30 years ago … to serve students.”

The expedition included 40 volunteers who were educational leaders, as well as Lifetouch employees and executives from across the country. More than 500 volunteers have devoted 100,000+ hours to Lifetouch Memory Mission projects in the past.

Law said, "Service is critically important to me. It's ingrained in my family. From a young age, I participated in service learning, and I continue to do so in my adult life. Our Minnetonka Schools’ curriculum reflects a variety of dimensions for student success, including academics, character development, physical and mental health, leadership and service. I am committed to embracing each of these aspects, as superintendent, as we urge our students to do.”

This year, Lifetouch partnered with Guatemala-based Hug It Forward and the local community to build a school consisting of ‘bottle classrooms.’ Hug It Forward has built educational infrastructures using plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash or eco-bricks since 2009. Bottle classrooms are built using post-and-beam construction. The foundations, columns and beams are made from concrete reinforced with iron rebar. Rather than cinder blocks, the eco-bricks are used to fill the wall. The schools are expected to last at least 100 years.

"It was hard to imagine that bottles and trash could become a beautiful school building. Students and their families found and filled more than 10,000 bottles. Over three days, those bottles became the key material inside the walls of three classrooms, using chicken wire and twine.  This process saved the school about 60% of the construction cost and is very environmentally friendly,” said Law. “Each night we reflected on the day for about an hour. All of us went to Guatemala to help another community build a school. We all came home having learned more from the community and students than what we offered. They are a tight-knit community that supports education and lives the concept that it takes a village to raise a child. I hope to bring these lessons to my work every day.”

Since 2000, the Lifetouch Memory Mission has been serving children, families and communities around the world. The philanthropic initiative enables company employees and national education partners to travel worldwide to provide intensive volunteer services. Past mission trips have included helping to rebuild a village in war-torn Kosovo, repairing homes in Appalachia, establishing a children’s center in Jamaica and constructing a bridge in the land of the Navajo in Arizona. Memory Mission volunteers have also built 13 schools across Haiti and the Dominican Republic.