Calvin Spring Break Service Trips To Depart This Week

March 13, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

From March 17 through 25, while students nationwide join the annual spring
break exodus to the beach, some 75 Calvin students with less leisurely agendas
will be trekking to seven locales on the college's annual spring break
service-learning trips.

Two of the student groups will be lending a hand at Katrina relief.

"We're coming into the community to work alongside of agencies that are
already involved in the community, helping them to achieve their goals," says
Lori Gesink, associate director of service-learning at Calvin. "It's really
about partnerships."

Calvin students will clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in two
states.

One group of 17 students will work in collaboration with the John M. Perkins
Foundation for Reconciliation and Development in Gulfport, Mississippi. Another
group of 18 students will work in Houma, Louisiana, situated a mere 50 miles
from New Orleans.

The latter group will be led by Dan Vandersteen of Calvin's Broene Counseling
Center, who already did a stint in Houma in September 2005, working with the
Red Cross to provide mental and emotional counseling to evacuees.

The Houma trip will partner with a group of with retired seniors from Southern
Baptist Church in Arkansas.

The other student trips will be traveling to locations in the southwestern,
Midwestern and eastern United States.

For example, ten Calvin students will be working with the Red Mesa Foundation
in Rehoboth and Gallup, New Mexico doing trail conservation to help with
erosion issues. Another ten students will be building houses with Habitat for
Humanity in Kansas City, Missouri.

All of the students raised their own money to participate in the trips. And
each of the student groups will make a donation to the organization with which
they partner on the service projects. (La Grave Christian Reformed Church
donated $1,500 to Calvin's service-learning center to allow students to go on
the Katrina relief trips).

The spring break trips expand the horizons of the students who take them
Gesink says. The service-learning trips have a long legacy at Calvin, she
adds.

"Most of these trips, we've been sending for 20 to 25 years, working alongside
of the same agencies," she says. "And some students are repeaters. One senior,
Melanie VanderWal, has gone on three spring break trips in her time at Calvin.
I think it's just phenomenal that she chooses to do this."

Contact Gesink at 616-526-6581 or lgesink@calvin.edu
For the full story see www.calvin.edu/news

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Received on Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:24:26 -0500