Spring break alternatives

Last spring break, in a small village in the Dominican Republic, IU junior Tim Gross awoke to rays of sun flooding into his open-air dormitory room. After eating a breakfast of plantains, Gross carried into the village two bags of luggage filled with pharmaceuticals for ailments such as high blood pressure, headaches and parasites. He deposited the luggage in the makeshift pharmacy at the village church, rolled up his sleeves and went to work setting up a medical clinic for the villagers.
Gross has spent his last five spring breaks doing volunteer work. Last semester, Gross posted a message on the Collins Living-Learning Center e-newsletter asking fellow dorm-dwellers if they would be interested in volunteering somewhere over spring break. Next week, he will travel to rural Costa Rica to build houses with three other IU students from Collins.
“The trips teach you things about yourself,” Gross said.
Gross’ Collins group is participating in an “alternative spring break” next week. An alternative spring break focuses on servicing underprivileged communities, Nicole Janostak, Bloomington STA branch manager said. STA, a travel agency that caters to students, always offers at least two volunteer projects every spring. Whether it’s cleaning up ruins left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina or building houses in Costa Rica, IU students volunteer their class-free week to give something back to the world.

A day in the life: Dominican Republic
Gross spent his last two spring breaks in the Dominican Republic with the Timmy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds medical-service trips to developing countries, according to the foundation’s Web site. His days were spent setting up doctor stations, translating conversations between patients and volunteer doctors and organizing the medicine into dose bags for the villagers. The villagers he has met and the experiences he has gone through have shaped Gross’ world view.
Gross recalled a villager named Jonas who came to the clinic from the sugar-cane fields with a broken arm. The sugar-cane field overseer had broken Jonas’ arm because he asked for a pay raise. The doctors at the site were unequipped for surgery, so volunteers helped the man to
the hospital.
“You are learning about the culture through helping people,” Gross said.

Hurricane Katrina Relief
Last summer, IU junior Stephanie Boxell and her volunteer group Youth Advocating Leadership and Learning, a.k.a., Y’ALL, were broiling inside HAZ-MAT suits as they moved moldy drywall and insulation from the remains of a house. After carting away the toxic material from the house, it was time to hydrate. The crew sprawled out on what used to be a front lawn when, on the street, a car decelerated to a crawling roll. An elderly woman poked her head out the window and yelled “God bless you!” to the exhausted crew then sped off into the distance. A drive-by prayer, Boxell explained.
“Lots of the people feel like they have been forgotten,” Boxell said. “(They) are nice and thankful for the help.”
Boxell, along with 60 other Y’ALL volunteers from IU, is going to Biloxi, Miss., again this spring break to take homes damaged by Katrina and make them livable again.
“There’s actually people still living in FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailers,” Boxell said. “There are still some houses that haven’t been touched in three years.”
The group will make the excursion south via bus and set up camp at an old army base decimated by the storm. The volunteers helped rebuild the base in addition to cleaning up the surrounding residential areas.
“We have built showers, bathrooms, bunkhouses and have painted murals,” Boxell said of the group’s work at the base. The bunkhouses “Varsity Villas” and “Campus Walk” were named such as a tribute to IU.
“We basically did all the work on the site,” she said.
While the work can be laborious and at times emotionally draining, Boxell doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on a traditional spring break of relaxing poolside or on a beach.
“Mexico will always be there,” she said. “These people need a place to live.”