SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY Service-focused spring break

Projects include urban development efforts and help for the impoverished.
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. -- Eighty-six Slippery Rock University students and staff members will spend spring break, starting Thursday, providing community service to residents and organizations in seven cities across the United States to put their service-learning education into action.
"The Care Break 2004 project is an ongoing effort of SRU's Institute for Community, Service-Learning and Nonprofit Leadership," explained Bobbi Jo Wendel, a community counseling major from Slippery Rock.
"This year, our theme is 'Connecting With the World, One Community at a Time,' and we've lined up service programs that will hopefully make a difference in the lives of those we are helping, and in our own lives," she said.
Project agendas
Projects in Phoenix include programs for high school boys on parole at treatment facilities to help them learn to make better decisions. In East St. Louis, SRU students will lend a hand to some of the city's neediest children, then spend their evenings with both teens and seniors. In Memphis, students will work with Leadership Memphis and the Memphis Exchange club helping women and children in poverty.
Those headed to North Carolina will help rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Isabel as part of a disaster relief effort, and those visiting Kansas City will team with others for community environmental projects. The SRU team traveling to Baltimore will join the Civic Works Corps to develop urban parks and homes during the day, then offer academic and recreational after-school programs in the evening. The San Francisco Care Break team will focus on the environment as well as needy children, AIDS education, diversity and poverty.
Each group is accompanied by a university faculty or staff member as adviser.
Goal of program
"This exciting program has been under way since 1994," said Alice Kaiser-Drobney, institute director and assistant professor of government and public affairs. "Participants will see how their individual efforts can bring about a greater good for all concerned."
As part of the program, Care Break group members must raise the funds to pay their way. At each location, the student groups work with SRU alumni, civic or religious groups, or businesses to establish meals, lodging and in-town transportation. The students provide the work to complete planned community-service projects.
"This program gives students tremendous growth in leadership as they plan, organize and implement not only the overall trip, but the specific community-service projects they want to accomplish. All past participants have returned to campus tired but deeply enriched by their experience," Kaiser-Drobney said.
Those interested in joining or sponsoring the program should call (724) 738-2273.