Volunteering, Coast to Coast
New way to share Alternative Spring Break: Tweet
For the past four years, BU Today has been proud to join Boston University’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program. Alongside committed undergraduates, we’ve helped repair hurricane-ravaged homes in Pensacola, Fla., and in Biloxi, Miss., enclosed a church bathroom in Cranks, Ky., and mentored Native American children in Dupree, S.D. We’ve traveled more than 5,662 miles, across mountains and prairies, through cities and small towns, and volunteered more than 672 hours of community service. And each year, we’ve come home and shared our experiences.
Next week, BU Today reporters once again take to the road. In Springfield, Mo., we’ll join volunteers at Champion Athletes of the Ozarks, a nonprofit that teaches sports and life skills to people with disabilities. In New York City, we’ll work with the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the country’s oldest and largest AIDS service organization. Other volunteers are headed to San Francisco to empower girls at Girls, Inc., flying to Puerto Rico to work on housing and HIV/AIDS awareness at Iniciativa Comunitaria, and restoring caves in Horse Cave, Ky.
This year, we want to hear from as many of the 400-plus volunteers working in disaster zones and troubled communities across the country as possible.
Did you learn to use a circular saw or attend a Pentecostal worship service? Eat barbecue with Dean of Students Kenn Elmore’s family? Walk on a frozen lake or accidentally drive to Wyoming? Send stories and photos on Twitter by using the #BUASB10 hashtag.
Follow @butoday, @lesliefriday, @vickywaltz, @BUASB, @DanChiz, @DeanElmore, @BrLawrenceLC, and @solworth for tweets about time spent on the road, and join in the discussion by tweeting about your own adventures. BU Today will collect observations from any and all of the 35 ASB trips and post them on our Web site.
Not on Twitter? Add your feedback in the comment section below.
Organized by BU’s Community Service Center, ASB attracts hundreds of students and staff chaperones, who spend their spring break week volunteering in troubled communities across the country. Last spring, 416 volunteers traveled to 21 states and clocked in nearly 16,640 hours of service.
Vicky Waltz is headed for Springfield, Mo. She can be reached at vwaltz@bu.edu; follow her on Twitter at @vickywaltz.
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