Sixty-six Hamilton students are trading beach towels and suntan lotion for hammers and hardhats as they head south to volunteer at nonprofits in six cities, including two that still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Four trips are taking place during the first week of Spring Break, March 10-17. They include:
Hands on Gulf Coast – Biloxi Mississippi
This group will be helping with rebuilding, dry walling, and planting community gardens. (www.handsongulfcoast.org)
Emergency Communities – Buras, Louisiana
Volunteers will help with house gutting and serving meals at the soup kitchen. The nonprofit has a wide range of functions. They run a free laundromat, an Internet café and a distribution center. They also host live music by New Orleans bands, supply the local "Meals on Wheels" program, and run an afterschool program in a local FEMA trailer park. ( www.emergencycommunities.org)
Cumberland Trails- Crossville, Tenn.
Volunteers help build trails and do trail maintenance on Cumberland Trail.
Burgaw Elementary School- Burgaw, N.C.
The group will volunteer at a public elementary school, tutoring and playing games with the students.
Two trips will take place during the second of break, March 17-24.
Land Between the Lakes, Ky.
Volunteers will help with the maintenance of an 1850s working farm, by doing repairs and building fences. Volunteers will also help to get the facilities up and running for the tourist season. They will work at an environmental education center – working with the animals, doing trail work, gardening, planetarium, elk and bison prairie, park restoration, facility improvement. (www.lbl.org)
Habitat for Humanity- Franklin, W.V.
This group will help build a house for a family in need.
Hamilton's ASB program was initially sponsored by the Hamilton Action Volunteer Outreach Coalition (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. The following year the number of students doubled; the number of participants has steadily increased and now ASB offers six trips per year. ASB has now evolved into its own student organization with an executive board, that runs the program with Hamilton's chaplaincy. The students are housed in churches, camps and refugee centers. Student volunteers pay $125 each to participate in the ASB trips.
In 2006 all six ASB trips traveled to cities in Louisiana and Mississippi that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
