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Students Go Extra Mile(s) Through Alternative Spring Break
Dec. 30, 2014
SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
Story By: Marissa Nunez
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| Students have travelled thousands of miles and dedicated hundreds of their Spring Break hours to help improve communities across the country through the SHSU Center for Leadership and Service's Alternative Spring Break program. The center is currently accepting applications for the 2015 trips to Mississippi and Oklahoma. See details below. —All photos were submitted |
At Sam Houston State University, students have the opportunity to help out the surrounding communities through many of the student organizations and programs offered on campus. However, for students who wish to go the extra mile in measuring their service, as well as doing something different with their week of spring break, the Center for Leadership and Service’s Alternative Spring Break is the place you need to be.
Established in 2011, the program places teams of students into different communities throughout the country to expose those students to various social and cultural issues in an effort to promote social awareness and social change.
Get in on the Action!The Center for Leadership and Service is now recruiting for Alternative Spring Break 2015 Mississippi
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“We wanted to bring in a new program that allowed students to get into communities and become active,” said Tracy Szymczak, former CLS graduate assistant for service programs. “It’s a stepping stone to creating active citizens.”
Yet, the main goal behind ASB—what associate director Meredith Conrey calls the “ultimate service experience”—is to get students to start asking questions about the social issues affecting the people in local communities.
“We want students to start thinking about different issues and what they can do to help eradicate them and then to educate and mobilize others to better our community,” said Conrey. “That’s our overall goal for ASB.”
The site leaders, who are responsible for coordinating the trip, choose a social issue they would like to base their community service around and then pick a community partner site that can best accommodate a team for a week of direct service.
“We encourage the site leaders to choose something that they are passionate about before they select a community service partner,” Conrey said.
As ASB gears up for next spring’s trip, we’re taking a look back to last March, when three groups of eight to 10 participants traveled to work with various -non-profit organizations.
In Memphis, Tennessee, one team tackled poverty, hunger, and homelessness with the United Methodist Neighborhood Centers of Memphis, Inc.; in Port St. Joe, Florida, another team helped the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve protect and restore important ecosystems and landscapes; and, finally, in San Antonio, students worked with local non-profit City Year and The Boy Scouts of America.
Memphis—Rocking, Rolling and Serving
When Memphis site leaders Keenan Jones, a recent mass communication graduate, and Bianca Victor, a senior marketing major, realized they both enjoy helping people, they decided to choose a social issue that was close to their hearts.
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| While working hard to clean up Memphis (above), Keenan Jones's group also found a little time for fun, visiting the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum (below), the National Civil Rights Museum and the world famous Beale Street. |
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“Keenan and I both wanted to work with people in unfortunate circumstances, like poverty, hunger, and homelessness, which all go hand-in-hand,” Victor said.
After researching the top poverty rates in the United States, they ended up with three eligible cities but decided on Memphis.
“Memphis has very high poverty rates and issues that were dead-on with how we were trying to help, and we noticed that SHSU ASB had never been there before,” Victor said.
The team reached out to the United Methodist Neighborhood Centers of Memphis, Inc., and St. Matthews United Methodist Church, as well as three other community partners that led the team on different day-to-day activities.
“Our team was actually the only SHSU team that had multiple community partners, which was harder on our part, but we felt that it would give our participants a more well-rounded trip so we stepped up for the challenge,” Victor said.
On their first day in Memphis, the team partnered with the organization Memphis City Beautiful to help clean up streets around different city districts. They picked up 117 bags worth of trash, multiple tires, and even a couch.
During their week in the city known for barbecue, blues, and Elvis, the team got the chance to partner up with the University of Memphis’s ASB team and the Promise Development Corporation to help prepare a field to become a garden to help feed a small community; they helped repaint rooms for the Alpha Omega Veterans Services; and even had the chance to visit the National Civil Rights Museum, The Rock and Soul Museum, and the world famous Beale Street.
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| Darion and Varion Walton helped pick up 117 bags of trash as part of the Memphis crew. |
On one of the first days, the group helped organize and sell books at the UMNC thrift store, which Victor says was a lot harder than the team anticipated.
“Someone had passed away and donated their entire library, so our job was to find a way to organize all of the books, which was pretty hard, but it made us grow closer as a team because we had to learn how to truly work together to get the job done,” Victor said.
One of the most challenging things for first-time participant, Krystal Newman, a sophomore pre-nursing major, was to witness the conditions of areas around Memphis and what some people face on a daily basis.
“I had no idea the City of Memphis was in some of the conditions its in. We gained some knowledge about the city and why a lot of Memphis is in poverty in our weekly meetings leading up to spring break, but it wasn’t until we actually got there that it hit me,” Newman said. “It’s not something you see everyday.”
However, she said the experience allowed her to grow as a person, to gain important new skills, and long-lasting friendships.
“I definitely gained some great teamwork skills during our week in Memphis, but for me the best part was becoming so close with 10 other people from SHSU, all of whom have a passion for volunteering and community service, and bonding everyday over the service projects we did,” Newman said. “My experience with ASB has truly been life changing, and I will definitely be doing it again.”
Port St. Joe—Over the Sand and Through the Streams
The third group traveled to the “Sunshine State” to help clean up and restore the sandy beaches of the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve.
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| Chris Bertaut, who will be a site leader for the 2015 ASB trip, got a taste of spring service with his group that helped restore the beaches of the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve in Florida. |
First-time participant Christopher Bertaut, a sophomore sociology major, said the trip was something he had wanted to experience since he came to SHSU.
“I literally screamed in excitement after finding out that I had been selected to participate in the ASB program,” Bertaut said.
He said that the Florida trip was physically challenging and that on a typical day, the team would explore vast greenery and swampy areas of the preserve to put up boundary markers.
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| A Florida team member clears out some overgrown brush. |
“We were plowing through the cold, waist-high water, carrying heavy sign posts, and the most memorable moment for me was when the manager of the preserve tricked me into stepping into a swamp of waist-deep mud,” he said. “I could have reacted in many ways, but I just started laughing uncontrollably.”
During his week working on the preserve, Bertaut learned to be more open-minded about different types of service and how jumping into new types of experiences can be highly beneficial for future careers.
“I do a lot of work with Habitat for Humanity, so I have a preference for building homes and educating others on that social issue, but this trip taught me to be more flexible and open-minded because employers want to have employees that have specialized skills but they also want flexibility,” he continued. “For example, if I was specifically a tax lawyer but my supervisor needed my help on a large environmental law case, wouldn’t they want me to jump into the new experience with an open-mind?”
Overall, Bertaut, who is now serving as a Site Leader for ASB 2015, said the experience was amazing and one that he recommends it for any student who wants to spend their spring break helping others.
“The ASB program is the perfect answer to those students who don’t want to stay at home, but want to stay out of trouble and have a positive and engaging week,” Bertaut said.
San Antonio—Kats Helping Kids
Veteran ASB participants and site leaders Sarah Hagler, who is now and graduate school, and Tara Cobler, a senior psychology major, decided to focus on a social issue they have not had the opportunity to work with before—kids in San Antonio.
“It was definitely a different experience than I had in the past four years that I’ve done ASB because I’ve mostly done manual labor work, like building Habitat for Humanity homes; so this was a totally different social issue, and we really didn’t know what to expect,” Hagler said.
After researching different organizations, the two came across the international organization City Year, which aims to bridge the gap between at-risk students and schools in high-poverty communities through various programs and events.
One of those events is the organization’s annual academic-infused civic leadership camp for 125 elementary, middle and high schools called Camp City Year, where ASB participants received the opportunity to work as camp aids.
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| Among the projects students routinely undertake are working with children, with such organizations as City Year and The Boy Scouts of America. |
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City Year also partners with The Boy Scouts of America’s program Scout Reach, which reaches out to kids in low-income households by holding different activities that allows them to earn badges and participate in Boy Scouts without paying membership fees.
“The leaders from Scout Reach emphasized to us that these kids don’t have a lot at home and what we’re doing for them is giving them an opportunity to have fun and learn new skills that they wouldn’t have otherwise,” Cobler said. “I really believe that what he said sunk into our team members’ minds, that the work they were doing could have a significant impact on these kids.”
Day-to-day activities included fishing; learning how to shoot bow and arrows and BB guns; and other outdoor recreations.
First-time participant Paige Klinge, who recently graduated with a psychology degree, said it was amazing to work with her fellow participants to interact with the kids and to witness their various personalities. She also said that the experience taught her about different leadership styles and how people respond differently to each one.
“In my future career, I will have to learn which leadership style will work best with the different students I come across. Some will need direct guidance, while others will just need the confidence in them to complete different tasks on their own,” said Klinge, who is now participating in Teach for America.
Cobler and Hagler also received the unique opportunity to work as medical aids, helping take care of the many “scraped knees, wounds, and cuts.”
“They would come in with stomachaches, headaches, or just be really exhausted, and I loved being able to be there for them, comfort them, and making sure that they were alright. It’s funny how magical things, such as an ice pack or a bottle of water, can be,” Cobler said.
For Cobler and Hagler, the experience instilled into them a newfound passion and desire to work with kids in future community service projects.
“The trip taught me that you have to really listen to the kids and interact with them, go along with whatever their imagination is cooking up, and encourage them to be themselves,” Cobler said. “This experience was so positive for me because it reminds me to keep that sense of wonder and positivity about the world rather then letting it die out as I get older.”
Trippin' With ASB
The ASB program, in its fifth year, is still small when compared to other schools, but according to Syzmczak, “it is progressing and growing with each year.”
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In its first year, teams went to Gulfport, Mississippi, to work with Hands-on Mississippi, a group that helps repair the surrounding community from the affects of hurricanes; and another went to New Orleans to work with Katrina’s Kids, a head start program to help disadvantaged youth displaced by natural disasters.
The program has taken groups all over the country and engaging participants in different social issues each year.
Past trips include visiting the Cherokee Nation in Eucha, Oklahoma, to help build a new community center and refurbish a local park while also engaging in the culture of the Cherokee tribe by visiting a museum, a replica village and attending a church service spoken in Cherokee; another group helped build a portion of the Cumberland Trails in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee; One group worked with the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs, Arkansas helping clean and construct various projects such as building a platform for some of the large cats the refuge houses to use in their enclosure.
However, for all past-present-and future ASB participants, the feeling of making a difference in someone’s life was eye opening and life changing, and that the experience had instilled into them new skills and a new perspective of the world around them, which, according to Conrey, is what ASB is all about.
“You can’t change someone to become an active citizen in just two months time, it takes a lot of time working with a social issue but that’s what ASB is, it serves as a catalyst to move those students towards that,” Conrey said.
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