What Happens Here Matters
Alternative Spring Break Stories
Many Manhattanville students spent their Spring Break this year volunteering in Central America. Manhattanville College has a strong commitment to community service, so college officials therefore felt it was important to provide students with a range of options for the upcoming vacation.
Spring Break began on Saturday, March 10 and Manhattanville students headed out to a variety of national and international destinations. Resident Director Brandon Dawson led a group of 45 students and three chaperones on a Sober Spring Break trip to Orlando. Jet Blue Airlines and Days Inn hotels were so impressed with the mission they provided the students discounted rates. “We felt it was important to offer students an alcohol-free trip and the response has been terrific. There is clearly interest in a trip like this,” said Dawson. Students committed to a nightly curfew and avoided alcohol during the trip.
The Duchesne Center, which serves as the coordinator for community outreach and cultural, leadership and spiritual initiatives on the campus, operated two trips to El Salvador for Spring Break. One was a service learning and cultural trip and the other was a community service project. Students had to apply to participate in the Duchesne Center trips and held fundraisers to raise money to cover the costs. They experienced the culture of El Salvador while helping locals with various projects such as the construction of a future medical clinic and working with children at an after school program.
“I am deeply gratified to see significant interest among our students in a Spring Break trip that involves giving back to the community. The students have many options for this vacation and that they have chosen to spend it in this way is heartening to all of us,” said Reverend Wilfred Tyrrell, Interfaith Coordinator at Manhattanville and one of the chaperones for the trip. "I think what we have learned from our alternative Spring Break service-learning trip to El Salvador is that we can be 'ethically & socially responsible leaders' Now." We lived with the people, ate, prayed, danced and worked with the people. They shared their joys, struggles and pains with us too. They made us their families and friends. We saw that living simply, without all the modern toys and distractions, was healthy and fun.”
For more information about community service opportunities through the Duchesne Center, visit http://www1.mville.edu/Duchesne/opportunities.htm.