Students worked at Hands On Gulf Coast in Biloxi where they helped rebuild and planting community gardens. Hands On Gulf Coast is a program of the Points of Light Foundation and Hands On Network – a network of nonprofit organizations around the world that inspire volunteers, create leaders and change lives and communities through effective volunteer action. The Hands On approach mobilizes individuals to join together to address community needs, providing camaraderie as well as guidance through creating an impact with service. In partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Mississippi Commission on Volunteer Service, non-profit agencies, and local community members and business partners, Hands On Gulf Coast is supporting the volunteer-driven recovery of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and building back a more civically engaged community.
Students helped build trails and perform maintenance. The Cumberland Trail (CT), a Tennessee State Scenic Hiking Trail, became Tennessee's 53rd state park in 1998. The Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park contains a core corridor of 300-plus miles of trail beginning in the Cumberland Gap National Park (KY.) and stretching south to Chickamauga Chattanooga National Military Park and Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area just outside Chattanooga.
Hamilton students worked at Burgaw Elementary School near Wilmington, N.C. Through this outreach program, they helped students with homework and participate in after-school activities.
In Thibodaux, La., students helped build a Habitat for Humanity house. Bayou Area Habitat for Humanity is a volunteer-driven organization. Though the vast majority have no construction experience or building skills, volunteers are involved in most phases of construction. By working side-by-side with the family who will live in the house, volunteers witness the happiness created when a family is able to realize their dream of home ownership.
Land Between the Lakes is a 170,000-acre national recreation area in Western Kentucky and Tennessee located about 90 miles north of Nashville, Tenn., and just south of Paducah, Ky. Volunteers helped with the maintenance of an 1850s working farm, by doing repairs and building fences. They also worked to get the facilities up and running for the tourist season.
Students served meals to the homeless and seeking to alleviate issues of urban poverty in our nation's capital by serving at the Pilgrimmage, a local faith-based organization.
Hamilton's ASB program was initially sponsored by the Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach and Charity (HAVOC), a student-run organization that provides community service in Oneida County. The Alternative Spring Break program was started in 1993 when 20 students traveled to Miami to work on Hurricane Andrew relief with Habitat for Humanity. In subsequent years, the number of participants has steadily increased.
