Students break from the norm
Posted on March 17, 2008
Approximately 300 students participated in 27 Alternative Spring Break trips this year, traveling to 11 different states and six foreign nations to do humanitarian work.
Catholic Campus Ministry organized a trip to Cruz Verde in the Dominican Republic, for the second consecutive year.
Students on this trip painted the local school and pavilion, taught English and math to students and put on dental hygiene clinics for the schools and town.
Junior Greg Groves traveled to Cruz Verde and experienced Third World conditions for the first time.
“The experience gave me a better perspective on what people in a Third World country experience and also showed how we are all the same even though we live in different conditions,” he said.
The trip allowed students to live in a new set of conditions while helping the local community.
“We had to shower out of buckets the whole week, indoor plumbing was scarce,” Groves said. “You didn’t really get clean, just less dirty. It wasn’t horrible, it was just a very different experience.”
Junior Russell Maynard went to San Diego and helped set up and organize a cultural center in Point Loma, a Latino community that had been neglected and run down.
“The Friday before we left we went to a cultural show which was great to see the Latino community come together and celebrate their culture and others,” he said. “It was good to see what we worked for come together.”
Canterbury Episcopalian Campus Ministry sponsored a trip to Pascagoula, Mississippi to help rebuild in Jackson County, an area still devastated from Hurricane Katrina. Students helped build handicap ramps from what had been steps, then installed dry wall in the house of Brad Campbell, who had been living in a FEMA trailer for the past two years. Campbell has since moved out of the trailer back into his house.
Despite what was accomplished in Pascagoula the devastation of Hurricane Katrina is still evident.
“There is a lot that’s been done, but when you look around half the houses haven’t been touched,” junior Tyler McKee said. “There are empty lots where houses washed away and FEMA trailers where people have lived for two years. A lot still needs to be done.”
The work that needs to be done in the region is evident. One night the participants went back to the church where they stayed to find a homeless man sleeping outside the door to their room.
“We reacted differently down there than we would here at JMU because we didn’t know his story,” Mckee said. “So we gave him some food we had for dinner.”
Despite the different destinations for the various ASB trips students were impressed with the generosity of the people they where trying to help.
“The people of Cruz Verde were very loving and giving, sharing everything they had with us to make us feel comfortable,” Groves said.
Groves, Maynard, and McKee all plan to participate in ASB again next year. Junior Amy Shepherd went back to Cruz Verde for the second consecutive year, and plans to make a third trip within the next year. “Going back for a second time allowed me to reconnect with a part of myself I left there.”
CCM will be returning to the Dominican Republic and Canterbury Episcopalian Campus Ministry is planning a trip to Puerto Rico next year.
“The trip has helped me realize how important it is to help people, no matter how small it is to us it has a big impact on others,” McKee said.
