Serving soup beats sunbathing for some students

When Chris Franceschina arrived in Ensenada, Mexico, in June 2002, he received a rude… When Chris Franceschina arrived in Ensenada, Mexico, in June 2002, he received a rude awakening. Franceschina, who was participating in a 10-day mission trip to lay a foundation for a church, said the poverty he and his group saw astounded them.

“A couple people on the trip with me came home with only one set of clothing,” he said. “They gave the rest away to all of the impoverished children in the area. It’s definitely a hard thing to do, to see some of the things you see.”

During next week’s spring break, Franceschina will travel to northeastern Arizona with 16 other students involved in Cornerstone, a group based in Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Oakland. The group will drive non-stop for about 30 hours to a Native American reservation, where they will work with and encourage abused and neglected orphans.

The group will also help construct and maintain old buildings in the region. Franceschina looks forward to serving those in need of help, but also understands their situation.

“I expect to have fun working with the children, but these kids are coming from a bad background,” he said. “I’m not really looking to get anything out of this. I’m simply looking to serve other people.”

Franceschina’s group is not the only of its kind at Pitt. Many varieties of humanitarian programs are run through a division of Student Volunteer Outreach, located in the William Pitt Union. Through a program called Alternative Break, Student Volunteer Outreach will send more than 60 students to seven locations around the United States next week.

One group of students will head to Kentucky to help fix low-income homes. Another team will trail blaze in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico, rebuilding old trails while sleeping in tents without access to shower facilities. Yet another group will distribute hot meals to the needy in Illinois.

Terrence Milani, who has run the Alternative Break program for seven years, described it as a “weeklong immersion” that promotes a “very rich learning experience.”

“The program is focused on learning about people, learning about their problems. It is about experiencing it, rather than reading about it,” Milani said.

The Alternative Break program promotes and encourages community service projects for all students. While the students are on the trips, and even after they arrive home, they are encouraged to keep detailed journals about their interactions and feelings, along with other “reflection activities” done either individually or in a group setting.

Cathleen Connor-Weiss, the outreach coordinator for Student Volunteer Outreach, considers the program to be beneficial for everyone involved.

“We consider Alternative Break a service-learning experience. Each of our activities is based around needs — whether environmental, educational or health-related,” she said.

Eric Verprauskus, a team leader this spring for an Alternative Break trip headed to Puerto Morelos, Mexico, is ecstatic at the thought of another trip. Through the Alternative Break program, he has traveled to Honolulu, with Habitat for Humanity, as well as to Montana. In Hawaii, he helped to build houses for low-income families. While in Montana, he worked with the community to preserve a historic dude ranch. Verprauskus, who has been involved with Student Volunteer Outreach for three years, realizes the importance of such trips.

“The breaks have had an immeasurable impact on my life. For instance, one of the best parts of the trips is meeting people you do not know, people that can provide you with a totally novel perspective,” he said. “Connecting with others’ perspectives on these trips has led to changes in the direction of my life.”

Verprauskus, along with his seven team members, will work with the Mayan Cultural Center and will construct a house for future volunteers when they are in the area.

Although these alternative spring breaks are ambitious in helping the community, they also give students some time to relax. Eric Verprauskus saw the Rocky Mountains and visited Yellowstone National Park in the west. While in Hawaii, he visited Pearl Harbor and went snorkeling. Franceschina will visit the Grand Canyon near the end of his spring break trip in Arizona.