My first college spring break was spent a little differently than the crazy college spring break seen in movies. My eight days off of school was spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico doing service for their local Habitat for Humanity.
Cleveland State offers alternative, service-oriented, spring break excursions through the Viking Expeditions organization. Students can apply for the trips online and then have to be accepted after their applications are looked over. If a student is accepted to go on the trip, they can work to complete service hours that will bring down the hefty cost of the trip to one that is more reasonable.
I was accepted to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico and had the experience of a lifetime. My group consisted of fifteen incredible people who spent their spring break serving the community of Santa Fe and every single person learned and grew in their own way.
I had never done an ounce of construction work in my life, so going across the country to build a house was quite a ways out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, the Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity was filled with the most understanding and patient people and they each had their hand in teaching me something new throughout the week.
About half of us worked on drywalling a house that was a little further along in the building process and the other half was outside doing the very early stages of framing and sheathing a house. I chose to frame because it was a job that took place outside in the sun and I was desperate to come home with a tan.
While we worked on these houses we became close with three men who are serving the Santa Fe area through Americorps, a government-funded organization that involves adults in public service work. The Americorps men had been working and living on the site of Santa Fe's Habitat for Humanity homes for at least a year and were incredibly helpful and patient with us, and became our New Mexican friends for the week.
Now, Habitat for Humanity itself does not just give away homes, it helps to build a home for families in poverty that are willing to work long hours on the building process of their own homes and for those also willing to go through extensive financial classes in order to better handle their money. The financial classes are in place so the families will be able to manage their money, pay their mortgage, and pay additional bills once the home is complete and they move in.
The week went by incredibly quickly. We worked from 8:30 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon building the homes, and then we took the evenings to explore all that New Mexico has to offer. We went to incredible restaurants, cooked great food in the kitchen of the church we were sleeping in for the week, hiked mountains, enjoyed hot springs, and absorbed the rich culture that New Mexico is known for.
I am so thankful for this eye opening and fulfilling experience that was offered to me by Viking Expeditions and Cleveland State, and I am anxiously looking forward to all of the service trip opportunies VE will provide for me in the future.
