Spring break is usually thought of as a time to serve oneself -- to get much-needed rest and relaxation at home; to bathe, surf and swim in a sun-kissed sea; or to cram for a midterm, compensating for mismanaged time earlier in the semester.
This image may be changing, as more and more American college students, including Hopkins undergraduates, are spending their spring breaks doing good for others.
Fifteen Hopkins students recently spent this year's spring break in a very different way. Skirting the surf, sand, sun and self-indulgence typical of the season, these young men and women signed up for a week-long "alternative spring break", a volunteer program that sent students to Moss Point, Mississippi, to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Hernan Del Aguila, a sophomore International Relations major, says, "It was something different for spring break ... I'm from Peru, and I try to go back once a year. I see a lot of people there just living in poverty their entire lives. I wanted to see what it was like for ... Americans [to adapt] to Third World conditions like the ones in Peru."
Applicants were asked about their past community service involvement and their preparedness to travel with a group of diverse individuals. Fifteen students were selected for the program. Funding limitations capped the number of students. The program was subsidized, such that each of the students was asked to pay only $150 for the trip.
The 15 students comprised a variegated set of beliefs -- Christianity, Islam, atheism and the Bah87'92 Faith -- reflective of the goals of the Hopkins' Bunting-Meyerhoff Interfaith Center (IFC), a campus institution promoting inter-religious understanding, which organized the trip. The group covered a broad scope of academic disciplines as well, with the students' majors ranging from International Relations to public health, economics and philosophy. "I got to meet a lot of people at Hopkins that I wouldn't have met otherwise," said Aarthi Rao, a sophomore public health major. "It was nice to be with the group in a setting other than an academic one."
Accompanying the students were Ann Forno, the director of the Hopkins Tutorial Project, Shelly Fickau, director of Residential Life and Kathryn Schnurr, the assistant chaplain at the Interfaith Center.
At the start of spring break, the entire group flew down to Moss Point, where they stayed in a converted wing of a Methodist church, just one of many places in the region mobilized to house volunteers. The renovated wing included basic accommodations for the volunteers -- mattresses, showers and a kitchen for preparing food. Since the Katrina disaster, the church has hosted over 3,000 volunteers.
"They were very open and friendly," Rao said of the church.
The IFC group was the only group sent to represent Hopkins, but not the sole group staying at the church. Sometimes, the IFC group had the opportunity to interact with these other factions, including a skilled construction team from North Carolina with professional electricians that took time off from work to go to Mississippi. "Some of us hadn't worked with a hammer before, and they [the North Carolina team] were so patient with us," said Nirosha Mahendraratnam, a sophomore public health major.
During their stay, the students helped with a variety of the church's relief programs. Victims of Hurricane Katrina could submit to the church applications for aid in repairing their houses. Many houses were gutted by flooding and the subsequent rot it caused.
The students were assigned different jobs by the church -- some helped rebuild houses by hanging insulation or painting. "Our jobs in Moss Point changed every day based on the assignments we were given by the pastor," said Amanda Klein, a junior International Relations major. "I built walls, `pulled' wires (that's the technical term), dug a ditch for plumbing, and lots of other little odd jobs." On the first day, the whole group helped rip up floorboards.
The group brought much-needed relief to the area. "I knew that I should expect to see devastation, but I was shocked at the extent of it, considering that it has been over two years now," Mahendraratnam said. "We'd be driving around, and you'd just see the foundation of houses -- and even that would just be crumbled to pieces everywhere. I think what's so hard is that this isn't some third-world country. This is the U.S."
On the fourth day of their stay, the group passed out toys at a local elementary school. "The group from North Carolina brought carloads of toys with them," Del Aguila said. "They wanted them distributed. So a bunch of us loaded a van with toys and set off for Kreole Elementary." When the group arrived, all the kindergartners and first-graders were assembled, waiting to receive the toys.
"The kids were really excited to get toys from us," Rao said.
When asked about the overall experience, Rao said, "We did a lot, but we barely scratched the surface."
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