Every year, Stonehill sends groups of students to various locations in the United States and abroad to do service work for their spring breaks. This year is no different. Students this spring break who are involved in the H.O.P.E. program will be traveling to places such as Tennessee, New Orleans, Arizona, Nicaragua, as well as many others.
For the participants, it starts out as a journey to serve others, but somehow morphs into the people they are helping, end up changing them as a person.
One trip leader, Vivian Fitzgerald, went on a H.O.P.E. trip last year and fell in love with the program, and is now leading a group of almost 30 students to New Orleans.
The organization, H.O.P.E. stands for; honoring your neighbor, organizing for justice practicing peace, and encountering god. It seems these trips accomplish all of those goals. Fitzgerald says of her experience, “It really humbles you as a person, and pops your Stonehill bubble. As corny as this sounds, hope gives me hope.”
Duties for the students traveling won’t be decided really until arrival. In the past, activities have included building houses, helping in assisted living facilities, working in soup kitchens, teaching English to young students (if in a foreign country), and many other volunteer tasks.
What really sets H.O.P.E. apart from other organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, etc, is that the students really get to interact with the people they are helping. Fitzgerald, who helped in Wheeling, West Virginia last spring, thrived off of the interactions with those she met while on the trip. This year, she intends to pass that knowledge along to the students she is leading. “I really want to inspire my students to get out of their comfort zone and have a conversation with someone they never would have interacted with. People are people and you never know until you ask”.
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