For a responsible sixteen-year-old, Michael Wilson has a lot of problems--his father was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, his overworked and overprotective mother will not talk about their situation, and does not want him playing football, and he has suddenly started to receive letters that his father wrote before his death.

After an incident at school, seventeen year-old Alaine is spending spring break in a "volunteer immersion project", toiling away under the ever-watchful eyes of Tati Estelle and her eagle-eyed mother at a new nonprofit in Haiti. Although it is meant as punishment, Alaine is still able to flirt with Tati's distractingly cute intern, get some actual face time with her mom and experience her family's history in Haiti for the first time.