Calvin students serve, reduce carbon footprint during spring break

Summary: This year Calvin students will lead nine service-learning spring break trips with all of the students heading out on wheels, an effort to help eliminate the college's carbon footprint.

Beginning Friday, March 19, 2010, about 100 Calvin College students will travel to nine locations in eight states to engage in service-learning opportunities.

Calvin students have been leading these trips for years, but this time they are trying something new, choosing to have students drive, rather than fly to all nine locations. Organizers say this change reduces Calvin's carbon footprint significantly. For example, a student's carbon footprint driving to Galveston, Texas this year is $32. Flying to that same location would multiply that student's carbon footprint more than ten times over.

Calvin students will help with ongoing hurricane relief in Houma, LA and Galveston, TX; work with at-risk young women in Knoxville, TN; learn about the effects that mountaintop removal has on the environment in Kermit, WV; participate in urban ministry outreach in Boston, MA and Chicago, IL; help with an urban art rejuvenation and community development project in Providence, RI; learn about the culture of small-town America in Three Rivers, MI; and learn about the experiences of immigrant families in Grand Rapids.

The students in Grand Rapids will get a real look at the challenges immigrant families face. As a part of their experience, on Saturday, March 20, students will ride on a bus alongside immigrant families heading to Washington D.C. to observe a rally for immigration reform.

Noah Kruis oversees the nine trips and will serve as a mentor for the students serving in Grand Rapids. He says that these trips help students realize the many challenges within our country and our own city.

"We want people to engage in cross-cultural experiences, a desire to open students eyes to God's work in places we consider the outskirts of society," said Kruis, "and to be able to go anywhere and look for strengths of communities and how God is at work ..."

Each student-led group has a Calvin staff member going along as a mentor.

For more information on the service projects, contact Noah Kruis at 616-526-6895 or at nkruis92@calvin.edu.
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Received on Thu Mar 18 10:28:38 2010