Fresh baked cookies sit alongside bowls of chips and soda cups on a table in the center of the room, surrounded by comfy, welcoming couches filled by students with fingers full of sweets and eager to start their meeting. It is Thursday night, and student volunteers of Humboldt State’s Youth Educational Services House are getting ready to discuss their upcoming journey for their program — Alternative Spring Break.
“Alright, I’m going to go around the room, and I want you to tell me — on a scale of one to 10 — how excited you are for the trip. Go!” ASB student director Guillermo Gomez started the meeting off with a pumped-up vibe, agreeing with fellow director Jacquelyn Gutierrez that they’re both a confident 10.
“I’m usually thinking about ASB wherever I am, so I’m ready,” Gutierrez said.
Student volunteers — still munching on warm cookies — all shouted high numbers, one student added that she began to pack in January.
Members of Y.E.S. House’s ASB program will be heading to San Francisco to spend their spring break vacation servicing the homeless population in communities different from their own. Students of ASB volunteer locally during the fall and spring semesters, serving our community’s homeless population and working with programs such as Food for People, Humboldt County’s food bank. Volunteering in their own community before taking the week long service trip works as a sort of training for the students, something the directors say pays off by this time in the school year.
“One of our goals was to get rid of stereotypes within the group,” Gomez said, later adding that during some of the first volunteer meetings of the semester, students use negative words when talking about homeless people, such as “bum” and “hobo.” Now, after committing time to the club’s weekly meetings and local volunteer services, Gomez said those words are no longer heard.
“The cool thing is that we never said, ‘Hey, don’t use those words.’”
By educating themselves throughout the semester and gaining personal experience, students learn to break down their stereotypes, and by spring break they are eager to branch out and help others in an outside community.
ASB students will leave Saturday at 8 a.m. and return to HSU on Friday, March 16 — the last day of Spring Break. Students have a full schedule planned and will work with several programs in San Francisco, such as Central City Hospitality House in the Tenderloin district and Dolores Street Community Services in the Mission and Castro neighborhoods. On one of their volunteer nights, the ASB students will prepare, cook and serve dinner to hundreds of hungry people.
On top of spending their upcoming vacation servicing others, ASB students will be under strict rules of conduct — number one being absolutely no drugs or alcohol. Other rules include curfews, bed times, bed checks and waking up by 8 a.m. almost every day of the trip.
The students don’t mind. In fact, instead of leaving their Thursday night meeting five minutes early after discussing their work-filled vacation week, the group stayed and played a game together, finishing up their full hour’s time in the small Y.E.S. House building. They were happy to enjoy their time together as a group, making each other smile and laugh. Most students aren’t there for a school unit and are definitely not required to spend their time servicing others. They want to be there, and they want to make others feel the same happiness and contentment.
San Francisco will be happy — and privileged — to welcome the warmhearted students.