Students spring into action as community volunteers

With suitcases filled with supplies carried by arms ready to do work, 65 Colgate students set out this past weekend to engage with communities in need.

The Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education (COVE) and the Office of the Chaplains run alternative spring break trips for students looking to do something meaningful with their time away from campus. Students are serving communities as near as Edmeston, N.Y., and as far as Hato Mayor in the Dominican Republic, while learning what it means to be global citizens.

“These trips open students’ eyes so that whatever job they end up in, they have an awareness about the world,” said Ingrid Hale, COVE director. “We want the participants to become engaged citizens.”

The COVE sent teams to four locations: Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D., for community building; Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic, to lead income-generation workshops; the Pathfinder Village (a community for individuals with Down syndrome) in Edmeston, N.Y., to provide residential assistance; and New Bern, N.C., for Habitat for Humanity.

Colgate students spent their 2009 spring break as volunteers for Habitat for Humanity in New Bern, N.C. A group of students is back in New Bern this spring, helping with another home. (Photo by Luke Connolly ’09)

 

“Because students won’t have the distractions they do on campus, they are able to fully immerse themselves in these trips,” said Hale. “They’re all intense, short-term commitments, which create a very cohesive dynamic.”

Hale noted that students are doing more than manual labor — they are partnering with a community.

“The students [participating in the Habitat for Humanity trip] were asked to speak at a local elementary school about the importance of community service,” said Hale. “Colgate has a very positive relationship with Habitat for Humanity. Not only are the students respectful and professional, they work hard. They want to make the most of this experience, so they wholeheartedly throw themselves into it.”

Students participating in the chaplains office trips also will have the opportunity to collaborate with communities.

Through the Colgate Jewish Union (CJU), students will travel to New York City to volunteer at schools in Harlem and prepare kosher-for-Passover packages to send to the elderly. The University Church is sending a team to Jamaica for service work and members of the Newman Community are traveling to Vatican City.

Rebecca Blake ’10, who is on the CJU trip, spoke of the value of a faith-based service trip.

“I enjoy traveling with Rabbi Dave as he is both my professor and spiritual mentor. I find that service in a religious context is very fulfilling.”

After the trips, participants will run brown bag lunches to share their experiences with the Colgate community.

“These students are committed to the Colgate student body,” said Hale. “They recognize the importance of educating the rest of the group.”