One Week Can Change a Life

By Cara Carlson ’08

Instead of going to Cancun, Ft. Lauderdale, or other tropical Spring Break destinations, many Gustavus students chose to go on service trips. Gustavus’s annual Spring Break Work Trips are a popular choice.

Since 1989 Gustavus has provided the alternate option in the Spring Break Work Trips, where students travel to other cities to help with service projects, including helping build homes, working in shelters, and more. Destinations have included San Antonio, Texas; Jacksonville, Fla.; Meridian, Miss.; New Orleans, La.; and Mobile, Ala.

More than 100 students went on this year’s trips, March 21-30, to help in the ongoing Hurricane Katrina clean-up efforts. According to Nicole Blake, a senior organizer and Gustavus Habitat for Humanity chapter co-president, the trips have become more popular in recent years.

“Student interest in the projects just keeps growing. The first Gustavus trips started with between eight and 20 volunteers. For the last three years, we have taken about 100 students on each trip,” said Blake, a communication studies major from South Dakota. “It’s great to see that so many people want to get involved. More volunteers also mean more resources brought to the sites, which allows more work to be done in less time.”

The Gustavus Habitat chapter now coordinates the Spring Break Work Trips, which are done in conjunction with the national organization’s Habitat for Humanity Annual “Collegiate Challenge” Spring Break Work Trips.

During the weeklong relief effort, the volunteers work eight hours a day on as many as 30 houses at two different sites. They install windows, put up walls, and nail wooden support beams together to provide a solid living space for others.

“What most people find interesting is that we have chosen to spend our Spring Break vacation doing hard labor instead of relaxing on a beach somewhere,” said Caitlin Anderson, a first-year nursing major from Stillwater, Minn. “I would much rather spend time doing something that has a valuable effect on others’ lives as well as my own. Spending a week with Habitat is the perfect opportunity.”

On the 24-hour bus ride from Gustavus to the destination and then back again may not be glamorous, but it shows the dedication of the volunteers to their mission. “The bus ride in the beginning is when everyone gets to know each other and gets excited about working on the houses. On the way home, it’s more about reflection and what we helped accomplish in areas of suffering,” Blake said.

During the trips, the students also get a chance to experience the culture of the area they work in. Evenings are spent engaged in activities such as tours of swamp areas, picnics by the shore, or helping out with dinners sponsored by local churches and community centers.

Both Anderson and Blake stress the importance of the service opportunity the Habitat trips provide. One unique aspect of these particular projects is that the students are able to immediately see the results of their work. “It’s great to be able to step back and say: ‘Look what I helped create. I helped build that house for that family’,” Anderson said. “Gustavus is a very service-oriented institution, and students here understand the need for help in other parts of the country and world.”

Habitat for Humanity challenges people of all backgrounds to join in partnership with low-income families to improve the conditions in which they live. Volunteer labor and donations of money and materials are the driving force behind Habitat’s building and renovation of houses. Habitat’s “Collegiate Challenge” Spring Break Trip option is one of the few Gulf Coast and Katrina efforts remaining. Their credo is simple: One week can change a life forever.

“It is definitely a rewarding experience,” Blake said. “I can’t think of anything else I’ve done that has had this much immediate impact on myself and the people we are serving.”

Nearly 60 percent of Gustavus students participate in some form of community service or volunteer work during their time at the College.

Habitat for Humanity’s annual “Collegiate Challenge” Spring Break Work Trips are just one way students get involved and help others.