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The Tucker Foundation held the Spring Break Trips 2006 Celebration March 8
in the Rockefeller Center. The event brought together student volunteers from
five Alternative Spring Break trips that will depart March 16 for Mississippi,
West Virginia, Washington D.C., and Mexico as well as the Dartmouth Education
and Service Corps (DESC) Biloxi trip and the Navigators trip to New Orleans,
LA. For ten days, students will provide community service in these areas, with
focuses on each of the following: Hurricane Katrina relief; rural poverty;
hunger and homelessness; and border inequalities and women’s rights. Overall,
the 120 students will provide over 9,000 hours of community service, an
unprecedented number compared with previous years.
Nick Taranto ’06, the Student Leader of the Winter DESC Trip to Biloxi, MI,
spoke to the audience about his experience of going to Biloxi just three months
after Hurricane Katrina hit to help with demolition and reconstruction. Through
talking to people with different perspectives and working on demolition
projects, “I developed a sense of purpose I never really felt before.” He
stressed the importance of interacting with the members of served communities
as well as the physical work the students would provide. “The impact that you
have on these communities is incredible,” he said, and should not be
underestimated. He concluded with a moving anecdote of working on the house of
a 75 year old woman survivor who had lost 50 years worth of possessions in the
tragedy.
Stuart Lord, Dean of the Tucker Foundation, addressed the notion that these
service trips are “alternative”. He reminded the students that “caring, sharing
a talent or a gift with these people is not alternative. What you are doing is
mainstream and human.” Instead, students who decide to spend the break at the
beach are the ones who are having an alternative experience, he said. Dean Lord
congratulated the seven groups on their fundraising efforts. He emphasized the
importance of going to these areas to help, rather than simply sending the
$36,000 raised. While professionals could do the physical work more efficiently
than the student volunteers, “at the end of the day, it’s about building
relationships and sharing with other human beings,” he said. “You are going
there to learn about hope, despair, destruction and joy.” He underlined the
importance of cultivating relationships with the people in the communities as
the key to a powerful experience. In his conclusion, he encouraged students to
reflect on their upcoming experience and to ask themselves questions about the
meaning of life: “What does it means to be happy? What is my purpose? What do
these tragedies mean?”
Anyone interested in these or future spring break service trips should
contact Tyler Stahl at the Tucker Foundation by blitz or phone 6-3777.
Participants in the five 2006 Tucker Foundation ASBs mingle with students
from the Navigators New Orleans trip and the Spring ESC: Biloxi trip before
departing for their respective service locations. In all, more than 120
students spent their spring break serving others.
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