A record number of students from the University of Illinois Springfield will spend their spring break volunteering in Galveston, Texas helping with recovery efforts following Hurricane Ike.
The 45 students and 3 advisers will leave Springfield on Friday, March 12 and return to campus on Sunday, March 20. The group will stay at a local elementary school in Galveston with other students from across the country, volunteering for eight and a half hours each day. The students will be primarily helping with rebuilding and refurbishing homes that were damaged by the storm. Volunteers will also be doing community outreach, visiting home-bound residents, helping to feed the homeless and assisting in other community-related activities.
University of Illinois Springfield student volunteer Jaleesa Earthly says that a program like this is valuable not only for the students involved, but for the university as well.
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The UIS students are taking on the project as part of the One Mission Initiative, a faith-based organization. The group’s mission is to bring volunteers to Galveston to not only provide much needed help, labor, and support to the community here, but to also provide love, hope and encouragement.
Earthly adds that a program like this will also benefit the citizens of Galveston as well.
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The UIS Alternative Spring Break student organization was formed last year, when students took their first trip to Mandeville, Louisiana to help build homes for Habitat for Humanity following Hurricane Katrina.
This report on Alternative Spring Break was filed by WTIM Radio in Taylorville published online on March 10, 2010.
Download a PDF of the article:
20100310-TDN-UIS-Alt-Spring-Break.pdf
