As a college student it’s hard to resist the temptation to go home or on vacation for your spring break. This time of year, many of us simply want to catch up on our sleep. However, I’ve found that participating in an Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is much more exciting! The Alternative Spring Break program has provided students at WNEU with opportunities for service learning and leadership development. An ASB trip allows students to dedicate a week of their time and energies engaging in community service by immersing themselves in communities they are unfamiliar with and doing work they may have never done before. My trip allowed me to spend a week doing service projects in Pulaski, Virginia.
Day one consisted of travel. Our group did not take a plane to our destination; we had an 8 hour train ride (we stopped in DC for a while) and a 5 hour car ride to get Pulaski. During our stay, we slept in the basement of the Beans and Rice office on army cots. We awoke at 6:00 am every morning to begin our work. Though tiring, it was all worth it.
We did a number of different service projects throughout the week so our time there was never boring. The first day Meredith and I worked at the soup kitchen called “Daily Bread” which serves a hot lunch to anyone and everyone that stops by. They get a fairly good turnout and therefore need cooks, servers, and table setters to be on their toes at all times.
We also did a project involving dumping spoiled paint. The paint had been donated to Beans and Rice for painting the houses they are helping to build after the devastation caused by the 2009 tornado. The donation turned out to be a huge hindrance and Beans and Rice had to figure out a way to dispose of it. It took 2 days of work but all of the paint cans were opened, dumped, scraped, and left out to dry.
Part of the group also helped work on the roof of one of the houses that was being constructed. Not all of the group members were able to work on the roof because the weather was too cold (unseasonably so for Virginia) most mornings when we worked. No matter what service project we were doing, all of the members of the communities we visited seemed to be very happy to have us there. We definitely got a taste of Southern hospitality.
One of the most satisfying parts was working at the afterschool program called “Micro-society.” I was assigned to the middle school. We helped the students during homework hour and then helped them with their micro-societies. In this program, the students are split into groups in which they play roles they might have in the real world. There are police officers, tax collectors, bankers, performers, craftspeople, food vendors, and many other jobs. It was pleasantly surprising how easily the students became attached to all of us and did not want us to leave by the end of the week.
It was an amazing experience and I was happy to be able to bond with my group members. Evidently, we are still keeping in touch with a campus-wide game of “ASB tag” and whoever is “it” has to tag a member of our group when they see them passing by on campus. Because of this unique trip, I hope to be able to participate in more ASB trips in the future.
See you later,
Brandi
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