A group of University of Illinois Springfield students experienced a week of learning and helping — with a little sightseeing thrown in — over spring break when they went to New Orleans to repair flood-damaged homes.
Twenty-two students and two staff members made the trip March 11-18 to work with HisHands2Go (HH2G), an organization created shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to facilitate volunteer efforts, as part of the UIS Alternative Spring Break group.
“I had never done it before, and it was helping people out,” said UIS sophomore Sam Zielke. “In the end, it was very rewarding.”
The students involved in Alternative Spring Break mostly decided themselves where they would perform volunteer work, said Mark Dochterman, director of the UIS Volunteer and Civic Engagement Center.
“There were some logistical concerns within the boundaries of the money they can earn,” Dochterman said.
The story was featured in an March 24, 2012, article in The State Journal-Register.
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