Students to attend Alternative Spring Break for homeless relief effort

By Kara Swarbrick
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

This year, Samantha Steiner has chosen a different destination for spring break. While many of her classmates will be basking in the sun in Cancun or Florida, Samantha, 20, a sophomore psychology major from Buffalo, NY, will be headed to New Rochelle, N.Y. to help put a roof over a needy family's head.

"I am looking forward to seeing our end product," said Steiner, who has signed up to build a house with Habitat for Humanity. "Just imagine the feeling that you will have, knowing that with your help somebody has a nice roof over their shoulders as opposed to shelters."

Steiner is one of several Norwich University students who have signed up for Norwich's Alternative Spring Break, a program that allows willing students to spend their spring break helping the needy, according to Angela Roberts, Norwich University Community Service Director. The students will be spending a week in Washington, D.C., or New Rochelle, N.Y., doing community service.

"I think students really learn more about themselves when they serve," said Roberts. "You're learning about who you are as a person, how you relate to people, and what you actually know about the population that you're serving, compared to what you learn about them afterwards when you reflect back on the experience."

According to Roberts, the Alternative Spring Break was started in 1993 by Deirdre Whitman, former Assistant Director of Residence Life on the Vermont College campus. The program's first trip was to Washington, D.C., where the group of 10 stayed at the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV), the largest homeless shelter in the United States, according to Roberts.

Roberts, who went with the original group as a student, now runs the program, having taken over when she came to work at Norwich in 1999.

Roberts said that the two men who worked as community service directors before Roberts added different twists to the program, such as the two alternative weekend trips to Boston.

When she took over the program, Roberts said she added a twist of her own.

"This is the first year that there have been two trips during spring break," Roberts said.

The program took 17 students to Washington, DC, last year, where they tutored children, worked in a soup kitchen, stayed at a shelter, and did several others things and still had time for sight-seeing.

"I cleaned out a storage room, tutored inner city children, worked in a soup kitchen, played pool with kids, went sightseeing and learned how to play dominoes," said Rochelle Cortes, a 21-year-old junior criminal justice major from San Antonio, Texas. "The group also got together to visit memorials such as the Holocaust Museum, Vietnam Wall, Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and Chinatown."

"We did a number of community service activities, like cleaning the basement of CCNV, delivering food to various people in the city, and we helped prepare food for people that needed it," said Brad Clark, a 20-year-old junior political science and English major from Enosburg, Vt.

The group of students who attended last year's trip got to spend a week in the life of a homeless person living in a shelter, according to Clark.

"I gained an experience that was more or less a reality check," said Clark. "I witnessed how hard some people's lives really are."

Some of the benefits of this trip were receiving "a better understanding of the hardships some people face in their lives" and "meeting a wide variety of individuals with all kinds of backgrounds," according to Cortes.

"I met a lawyer, ex-gang member, and children that had grown up at the shelter," Cortes said. "The deciding factor was the fact that I could visit one of the largest homeless shelters in the United States and that I would meet some interesting people on the trip."

For others, the draw to serve was still accompanied by the traditional college student desire to travel.

"I had never gone to DC before," Clark said. "I wanted to see the city, and I got to go for free. I also wanted a chance to do something for other people."

Many of the students who went on last year's trip said that the experience was one of learning.

"I learned that life is too precious to be sitting around in some office typing away at a computer day in and day out," Cortes said. "We need to quit being selfish and help each other through life's big hurdles."

For Clark, the lesson learned was sociability.

"I expected the people living in CCNV to be depressed and angry or at least non-sociable," Clark said. "On the contrary, everyone that I encountered was very nice and talkative. I found this experience to be very rewarding, and I can say that I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight into a world full of misconceptions."

The trip this year costs $75 per person, which includes transportation, meals and lodging. The Washington DC group will spend a day with Norwich alumni at a luncheon before doing some sightseeing, according to Roberts.

Then the work will begin at Martha's Table, a community service organization, according to Roberts, and at DC Central Kitchen, a soup kitchen located within the CCNV shelter that doubles as an educational facility teaching the residents job skills that will help them get out into the working world.

Robert also said that the group will work with Family Life Center, tutoring children.

The New Rochelle group will be working with Habitat for Humanity for the whole week.

According to Roberts, the motivations and rewards for students who participate in the trip are different depending upon the individual.

"I think it's different for a lot of people," said Roberts. "I know I go down [to DC and New York] because I just enjoy helping the community, and I enjoy learning about myself while I am doing the service."

According to Steiner, the decision to spend her holiday working for charity came from her "love for doing community service and the satisfaction that comes from helping those who need it."

"I expect to get an awesome life experience out of this trip and to strengthen new and old friendships through teamwork," said Steiner.

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