FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:Cindy Workman (402) [email protected] Nic A. Prenger (402) 280-2455[email protected]
CREIGHTON STUDENTS CHOOSE ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK TRIPS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 4, 2002
OMAHA, Neb. -- For many students, spring break trips are associated with sun-filled vacations and the sand. For a large number of Creighton students, spring break March 11 -- 17 means digging ditches, building houses and caring for the poor and underprivileged.
Founded on the five pillars of service, community, simplicity, reflection and justice, Spring Break Service Trips offer a unique alternative to the stereotypical college spring break and are a time-honored institution at Creighton. Hundreds of students have participated in the trips, which often become the students' most memorable experience at college.
There are 17 sites and 126 students involved this year in the Spring Break Service Trip program. For the first time, this year's program will include an Omaha component in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity.
The Omaha Habitat "blitz build" will begin on Monday, March 11, 2002 at 37th and Franklin streets.
Maggie Bowie, a Spring Break Service Trip coordinator and a junior in the college of Business Administration, will be leading the Omaha-based Habitat for Humanity group. Bowie, along with seven other students, will be living, learning and working at the site -- passing their nights in sleeping bags on cold floors while many fellow students rest on tropical, sunlit beaches.
Over the span of one week, Bowie's group will be building a three-bedroom, one-story house. Bowie says more than 600 volunteers from Creighton helped to build the last "House That Creighton Built" including students, faculty, staff and administrators. Bowie says she hopes for an even greater turnout this year.
"I think the sense of community that students draw from the experience contributes to the great interest in the program," Bowie said.
"It is the service aspect that draws me to it, but the community building that happens as a result of the trips just can't be duplicated anywhere else," she said. During the week, students do their own grocery shopping and cooking, as well conducting personal reflections on their work.
In addition to the Omaha Habitat for Humanity build, this year's service trips will find Creighton students directing meal programs and clothing drives at the House of Peace Community and the Casa Maria Catholic Worker house in Milwaukee, repairing homes at the Nazareth Farm in West Virginia, providing outreach service on a Navajo Reservation in Arizona, and doing youth-related service in Minneapolis.
Shawn Gray, a junior in the college of Arts & Sciences, is another veteran of the program. He has made trips to Corbin, Ky and Taos, N. M. In Corbin, his group painted the inside of a small Baptist church. While in Taos, Gray helped build adobe houses.
This year, Gray will be coordinating a trip to Mankato, Minn. where his group will be working in a shelter for women and children.
Gray cites providence as the reason for his involvement in the service trips. "I went to the informational meeting with a group of friends freshman year, I liked what I saw, and I have been coming back ever since.
"Service trips can be eye-openers," Gray said. "The trips allow you to leave your normal routines and sometimes force you out of your comfort zone. The trips have the opportunity to teach more about those Jesuit ideals than by simply listening to someone talk about them."
Gray said he's not immune to the attractions of a more typical spring break vacation, but has managed to overcome the temptations rather easily.
"In all honesty, I considered joining my friends as they relaxed in the sun this year, but my past experiences with service trips wouldn't let me. On my trip to Corbin, I saw the look in the preacher's eyes when we had finished. It was a look that is hard to put into words, but it is what keeps me coming back," he said.
Gray said the best part about the service trips is their ability to create change.
"Sometimes the change you make in the community you serve doesn't seem like much, but it's something. It's the same with changes in yourself -- they might not seem significant, but they're there.
"The response of the community is pretty amazing. My experience has been that the service group usually receives quite a bit of service in the form of being made welcome, especially through home-cooked meals. The group response throughout the week is awesome too. When creating the groups, they try to mix people up so that you meet a lot of new people. By the end of the week (and some long van rides), group members can form some solid friendships."
Creighton University is an independent, Catholic, comprehensive university operated by the Jesuits, who have a 500-year tradition of excellence in education. Creighton has been ranked at or near the top of Midwestern universities in the U.S. News & World Report magazine's "America's Best Colleges" edition for more than a decade.
Creighton enrolls more than 6,200 students of diverse faiths and races from across the United States and 65 countries. The student body is taught by 700 full-time faculty members in the Colleges of Arts & Sciences, Business Administration, the Graduate School, University College, and schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, Law, Medicine, Nursing and Summer Sessions. The University is located in Omaha, Nebraska (pop. 800,000 metro area) on a 92-acre campus adjacent to the downtown business district.
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