2008 Woodie Awards
Spring break into action by helping
Amanda Duncan
- Page 1 of 1
Spring Break conjures up a picture of college students partying and having the time of their lives with friends. This was one of the many things that students did on spring break. Others visited family and friends back home or out of state. There are students who volunteered their time to charity.
College students from all over the country put their own needs aside to lend a hand. Several thousand headed to New Orleans to help in the rebuilding efforts from Hurricane Katrina. These students are from campuses in Northeastern Ohio, according to a news cast report on Cleveland's WKYC. Some participating campuses were Kent State University, John Carroll University, and Akron University.
The work that they did involved "gutting houses so the interiors can be re-built" said www.wkyc.com.
A project called Katrina on the Ground attempted to organize a relief effort to those affected by Katrina.
"The project is largely orchestrated by forward-thinking, college-level students who desire to make a difference with their lives and to impart positive, progressive change in the lives of others. " says the official website www.katrinaontheground.com,
"Also deemed the Student Spring Break Initiative, the direct objective of KOTG is to target, recruit, train and disperse students from various colleges and universities across the nation. These students are committing to provide at least one week of assistance to affected survivors in the areas of Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana during the month of March."
A national non-profit organization called Break Away offers students other ways of spending their spring break. It is located at Florida State University. It uses Orbitz.com to help find travel deals to help students to plan these trips.
"Break Away offers students the opportunity to travel to over 450 locations worldwide to perform community service projects. The organization now oversees chapters on 123 college campuses." said its website, www.alternativebreaks.org, "It has a network of over 120 chapter schools, more than 450 nonprofit partners and hundreds of individual members worldwide, through which its parts have access to the newest ideas and a broad range of support in the national alternative break movement."
