Courtesy photo
Students from the University of Wyoming help roof houses as part of Alternative Spring Break.
Girls Volunteers gone wild
By
Published 1-24-2008
The University of Wyoming’s Center for Volunteer Service (CVS) suggests students expand their horizons with an “Alternative Spring Break.” By participating in Alternative Spring Break, students will be able to travel to many places around the country and volunteer.
Katie Kleinhesselink, CVS coordinator, said the Alternative Spring Break program was set up in November 2005 by a student volunteer leadership team. At first, it was just a beneficent action of relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Eight team leaders and 42 students helped rebuild houses and gave support to people who lost their relatives and homes.
Now, the Alternative Spring Break program is designed to send students all over the United States to volunteer in three main areas: environmental restoration, social justice and human services.
“The main purpose of the program is to help students to develop a sense of civic responsibility and diversity,” Kleinhesselink said. Participants gain priceless experience, a deeper understanding of different issues in the modern world and motivation to change it and make it better.
Last year, the program was successfully extended to several different types of volunteer work. Some students went to Washington, D.C. and worked in a soup kitchen helping homeless people. For a better understanding of being homeless, they simulated a homeless person’s life for 48 hours, living on the streets of Washington, D.C. without money, cell phones or anything else to help them survive.
Amber Pace, a UW student, served as a trip leader last year and is now the Alternative Spring Break program coordinator. She shared her experience of being homeless in D.C.
“When we were on the streets, we understood how other people really treat homeless,” Pace said. “People just walked past you, pretending that they didn’t notice you or avoiding, as if you were a piece of trash. It changed my perception of life – I understood how big this problem is and that these people need help. However, working in the soup kitchen, I noticed that there are many people willing to help, providing homeless with food and other kind of support.”
In addition to helping the homeless in D.C., students may choose other volunteer opportunities. Students can go to the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota to build houses, Yellowstone National Park or Plateau in Utah and preserve the forest or Biloxi, Miss. to help people rebuild houses destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
Travel for the group will be financed by different sources. The main part will be paid by the student and CVS. According to a CVS coordinator, however, the organizers of “Alternative Spring Break” recently received a grant from PACMWA (President’s Advisory Council on Minorities’ and Women’s Affairs) that reduced the prices of all trips. The grant made the program more cost-effective to encourage students to participate. Now trips to the reservation in South Dakota will cost $175, fare to Yellowstone or Utah will be $375 and programs in Washington, D.C. and Mississippi will be $550.
The deadlines for applying for the program are Feb. 1 for the trip to Washington and Biloxi, and Feb. 15 for the others. These dates may be extended until the trips fill up. For additional information, please contact CVS at (307) 766-3117.
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