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04-09-05 Life In The “Holler” During Spring Break
Well, well, well…where to begin? College has just started back up again after almost two weeks off for spring break and I can tell you that I am definitely not excited about being back here after the break that I had. By the way, I hope all of your breaks were fun and filled with much excitement.
So you may be asking yourself as a high school student, I can not wait until College Spring Break because then I can go to Cancun or Florida or Myrtle Beach. I admit that I used to think the same thing and then when it actually comes time to plan something like that, all my friends and myself are too lazy to actually do it. However, instead of doing something that may be fun for just that one week, how about something that may change the way you look at things and have an enormous impact on your life during just that same week vacation.
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Our work-site group with Opal May |
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Canisius offers to students through the Office of Campus Ministry an “Alternative” Spring Break. Instead of going to those common sites as Cancun or Florida, you go to West Virginia, Kentucky, Washington DC and actually do something good for not yourself but for someone else. It sort of reminds me of economics because my opportunity cost (best possible alternative to a choice) of Spring Break was ASB (Alternative Spring Break). Instead of just staying home and working 40 hours and being completely bored with myself, I went out of my comfort zone and did something good for someone who had barely anything. The site that I went to was CAP (Christian Appalachian Project) and went to one of their two sites in Flatgap, Kentucky. It is completely a volunteer program and I went to the Appalachian Mountains to help families fix up their crumbling homes.
For some of you, this might not even sound exciting at all and in all honestly, I do not really know why I did it in the first place. They were desperate for people and even extended the deadline way later than they should have and it was during that extension that I decided to apply for it. I honestly believe that it was a sign from God for some reason that I should go and I am so grateful that I did. Needless to say that the bus ride was about 13 hours down there but it goes by pretty fast when there are movies to watch. Once there, your journey truly begins. Once in West Virginia, both CAP groups split up into their own specific sites and you take vans to your site. While driving up to my site, I could tell that we really were in the middle of nowhere as we climbed higher up the mountain and felt all the twists and turns that the Appalachian Mountains presented to us. When we arrived at Camp Caleb, which was our place of residence for the week, we were shown a short presentation of all the houses that they had been working on during their Workfest 2005, which happens for 5 weeks with different colleges attending throughout the week. Unfortunately, we were by ourselves due to our weird spring break week. Just watching the PowerPoint presentation of all the different people, you instantly felt connected to them and that feeling grew stronger when you actually went to the site the next day.
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Opal's house after many weeks of repairs done to it. |
I really had no idea what to expect when I went to the house but I knew that it was going to be hard work. I can tell you right now that we woke up at 6:30 am and by the time the work day was over, I was ready for bed by about 7 p.m. The first day was of interest and exploration, as I really did not know what exactly to do. We were broken up into groups and I had six people, including myself, in my group. They were Tina, Kelly, Jill, Holly, Steve, and Me! That first day, Kelly, Tina, and I put in what is called under pinning in the front of her house where her garden was and had to actually dig up the dirt so that the metal under pinning could have some support while being hammered against the wall. All the digging itself was enough to tire you out.
I will not get into too much detail since you basically get the idea of what the whole week is about. I finished the week by also doing vinyl (siding) and a lot more under pinning and digging. At night they also had entertainment for two of the nights and the other two nights were free time where I played a rousing game of Basketball and Snipe hunting! If you know what Snipes are, it is definitely a great time. I will also tell you that I only slammed a hammer against my finger once, which I was really impressed about since I am not too much of a tool man. I would probably remind you of Tim “the tool man” Taylor from Home Improvement.
If you want more information about my trip you can always email me and I’d be more than happy to tell you any specifics of my trip. I have already decided that I’m going to do it next Spring Break and possibly will do another service trip during our mid-semester break. I would just like to leave you with some words of insight…
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Holly, Kelly, myself, and Tina eating lunch
on our last day at the site. |
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Being down in Kentucky for that week and away from everything commercial and industrial that we live through every day was a gift from God. It was my week away from everything and I took full advantage of it. The people in my CAP II group were amazing and I made new friendships that I did not expect. The stars were breathtaking and something that you would never see in Buffalo. Mother Nature itself was so beautiful being up in the mountains and watching the clouds, trees, horses, cows, etc. The simple life of the South really hits you hard when you look back to how you’re living now. I look at myself in a totally different light now and I would love to become more involved in service trips. The lady that we helped this past week has a better home and a better place to live because dozens of college students gave up their Spring Break to help someone who they didn’t even knew but grew to love. As a Jesuit institution, this is an ideal situation in which you are helping someone else instead of enjoying your own selfishness and material possessions. I look now at my job and wish that I was doing something more in a service aspect instead of Fast Food service. Helping someone that really needed help made me feel good inside and just to know that you made a difference in someone else’s life is something that you don’t experience in everyday life. You have to go out of your boundaries and actually put forth the effort to help those who really need help. I don’t want to say that this trip totally changed the way I look at things but in some aspects it did in a great deal. Maybe because everything is still fresh in my mind it is still having a great impact on my life but I hope it stays that way. It was a great time with great people for a great cause. It is something that I definitely do not regret that I did and I look forward to next year for when I go again.
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