This year, I spent my spring break doing something out of the box. Unusual, unprecedented, and unique. Many college students spend this legendary week at the beach, traveling abroad, spending time with family, or clocking in some hours at work. I’m proud to say that my spring break was life-changing, not because I witnessed the best party known to humankind or had a meaning-of-life epiphany via gorgeous beach sunset. I had an active hand in shaping lives, for today and tomorrow, with great friends by my side whom I got the privilege to grow with in this experience.
Through an intensive spring break volunteer program called Break A Difference, I joined a crew of nine other classmates on a journey to Washington, D.C. for five long days of hard work. Founded in 2013, Break A Difference holds partnerships with United Way, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, YMCA, and other major non-profit entities with the intention to expose college students to the world of community service and volunteerism. Every year, different programs are put on in different site locations across the continental United States. Service projects this year took place in California, New York, Texas, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C. Each trip has at least a couple themes to the service being done. Some of these areas are hunger, homelessness, children, veterans, environment, and disaster recovery. The financial cost is cheap, and there sure is a lot to gain. It’s a wonderful thing to do if you want to give back to the community and help others less fortunate, try something new by changing up your traditional spring break plans, or get away for a week and travel to a city you’ve never seen. I would have a hard time believing anyone could come home from Break A Difference and regret their decision to sign up and go.
We set off on Saturday night at 9:30 P.M. It felt bizarre to start a big road trip at that time, but we had to do it. We endured an excruciatingly long night in a jam-packed van. You need some room to lay down and sleep? That’s funny. I had never used a scary, outdoor gas station rest stop at 3:30 in the morning, but now I have that experience under my belt. My family and I travel by car up and down the country every single summer, so I thought I could handle this like a piece of cake. Short answer: No. Despite the circumstances, we made the best of it. A memorable highlight of our trip up for me was stopping for breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in North Carolina. We experienced a beautiful, fresh, delicate snowfall. I could only imagine the thoughts going through people’s minds when we got out of our van like clowns in a clown car. Some of us were in shorts. (Why, Colin and Jerry?) Some of us had never seen snow before, so Snapchat was whipped out and exclamations of glee resounded through the parking lot (Madison and Pablo). We may have gotten stares. Maybe I was hallucinating, but I swear I heard, “They ain’t from around here, are they?”
A little over 900 miles from St. Petersburg and an eternity later, we finally arrived at our Boys & Girls Club location, our home for the week. Richard England Clubhouse 14 on Benning Road. It’s now Sunday. Again, long night. The kind of feeling where the days blend together and you feel sort of disoriented in both time and space. It was about 4:00 P.M. when we arrived. Try to really think about this: 9:30 P.M. to 4:00 P.M next day all in a van and you’ve had sporadic and inconsistent hour-long naps throughout. We were sort of going crazy. It was also cold, and a snowstorm was to come; the same weather we saw a little further south in North Carolina.
First order of business: to unpack the van and get settled. I was so exhausted, I don’t remember details. But I know we were greeted by three pretty faces behind a long table. These awesome young women were our leaders: Katie, Kayla, and Grace. We signed in, confirmed that we each did all of our paperwork, and received an awesome Break A Difference t-shirt and a snazzy water bottle. (It’s a Nalgene! Nice!) That night, we met our fellow volunteers and started getting to know each other. For the week, we were going to live and serve in volunteer projects with these students from other colleges. There were 35 of us total, so it was a size that wasn’t too small and wasn’t too big, either. Instantly, we all got along and had so much fun with each other. We were already forming friendships within hours. The chemistry was real. Imagine how hard it was for us to separate just some days later. (Shout-out: We miss you guys so much.)
Meals were simple, but we were never hungry. Pots of coffee were always brewing. At night, we slept in the club’s classrooms in cots, which are best described as foldable hammocks on legs. These cots were similar to what people would sleep in following a natural disaster if they were displaced from their homes and had to live in a shelter. They even had “American Red Cross” stamped on them. Showers happened underneath a low-pressure sprinkle of either lukewarm or ice water in a locker room. (Yes, no hot water. Lukewarm or ice water was like a game of roulette. You may get lucky, or you may freeze.) The living situation with Break A Difference is very simple, humble, and frankly sort of frustrating at times, but these things made us grateful for our food at home, our cozy beds, and steamy showers that we may take for granted. I thought I couldn’t bear to eat another peanut butter sandwich, and sleeping in that cot was not always comfortable. Sometimes in the shower, I expected to see my life flash before my eyes and thought, “Alright, this is it. Cause of death: hypothermia.” However, in hindsight, I’m happy we had this simple lifestyle because while we were doing service, we simultaneously got to feel what life is like without our basic everyday privileges. There was a lesson to learn in all of it. There are millions upon millions of people who have to eat the same food over and over because it’s all they can afford, or they don’t really eat at all. These people may sleep in their cars, under bridges, or jump from shelter to shelter just to have a roof over their head when they sleep. They may not have enough money to pay for hot water in their home, or they don’t get to take showers at all. We live like kings and queens, and we didn’t truly know it until we lived with less. This was just the beginning. The extraordinary service opportunities were still to come.
Monday, March 13
On Monday morning, we woke up bright and early to attend an orientation. We met the staff of our Richard England Clubhouse 14 we were staying in and heard an overview of what kind of week we were to expect. Shawn Osborn, the director of our particular club, told us a little bit of background on the children we’d be spending time with and being mentors for. He let us know right off the bat that just being here with their kids is so important because many of them have challenging home or family situations and therefore may not have strong, positive role models in their lives. Many of them do not have anyone in their lives who has attended college. Just being college students was apparently meaningful enough, because they may start to explore the idea of attending college one day and begin caring about school if we inspire them successfully.
We helped out with some housekeeping around our own Boys & Girls Club. The huge game room was about to have the floors ripped out and re-done, so one of our tasks was to clear the room of everything. (Remember those pool tables, everyone? Wow.) We also did some organization in some offices and other rooms upstairs. With 35 pairs of extra hands around, our club’s staff was really grateful to have us.
All of us volunteers got put into groups that we would stick with for the week. For the afternoon, we split up into these groups for the first time. Different groups got deployed to different Boys & Girls Club locations around the D.C. area. Some people stayed at our Richard England Clubhouse 14, some went to a different club in D.C., and some went to a club in Alexandria, VA (just about a half-hour drive). When we were at our clubs in the afternoons, we would help children with their homework, play games, play basketball in the gym, or make art with them. Sometimes, just a good conversation over drawing a picture was enough to make a child feel attached and happy.
Tuesday, March 14
We woke up to many inches of fluffy, fresh snow on the ground! My group went to Food & Friends with a couple other groups. Food & Friends is a service organization which delivers nutritious, prepared meals and healthy groceries directly to people’s homes. The people they serve are very ill, usually with cancer or AIDS. Their treatment may be so expensive that they cannot afford to buy the proper food they require for their conditions. They could be so sick that they are physically unable to leave their bed or their home to go grocery shopping and cook. First, we had the honor of getting a tour of the facility. It was an immaculate, beautiful, state-of-the-art kitchen system. It looked like something that could be on T.V.! Food & Friends really impressed me because they’re not only feeding people in need daily; they are feeding people food that caters directly to their needs. Dieticians and professional chefs carefully design all the meals and grocery packages for people with diabetes, people who need liquid diets, people who need low-sodium diets because of a heart problem, etc.
Our job at Food & Friends was to make a delivery run. We picked up a load of big paper bags full of different types of food and drove around Washington, D.C. delivering them to clients! We had a list that guided us and gave us addresses of the homes. We would take turns jumping out of the car in pairs, grabbing the correct bag of food for the particular client from the trunk, and personally giving it to them. It was really remarkable to do something so personal and hands-on. In the afternoon, the groups went to their designated Boys & Girls Clubs and spent quality time with our kids.
Wednesday, March 15
On Wednesday, something a little different happened. We were lucky to have a panel of professionals come in and tell us about what it’s like to work for or start up a non-profit organization. We even got to meet a co-founder of Break A Difference. The members of this panel all came from different backgrounds and work in different areas of service, but what they all had in common was that they were so excited to encourage us to continue volunteer work even after this week was over.
Wednesday morning was a hugely impactful moment for me because I learned all about AmeriCorps for the first time. AmeriCorps is basically the domestic Peace Corps. I had some sort of interest in the Peace Corps at one point in my life, but I ended up dismissing it as an unattainable path for me personally. All this time, I didn’t know that such an organization existed; I could do work that is like the work the Peace Corps does, but stay in the United States. I’ve always wanted to spend my life in a career that helps others in need, but I was convinced it was impossible to do that and make a living. “Service” and “volunteering” are frequently correlated with “no paycheck.” I’m not carving it in stone, but AmeriCorps may be an option for me in my future. There are all kinds of programs and positions you can apply for all across the country, and they even offer to pay for education after serving with them for a certain amount of time. It would also be an excellent credential on resumés. Our morning panel really was a pivotal point for me. There is always immense work to be done for people in need around the world and helping people worldwide is so vital to the health of humanity. But my opinion is that there are also always people right down our own streets and around the corner that need the same help. According to Feeding America, in 2015, 42 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, meaning they don’t have reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. That may be something I’d like to spend my time alleviating.
After the panel, we got to work making decorations, creating activities, and putting together information for a college fair we were throwing for the kids when they got out of school that afternoon. This was our opportunity to talk to kids about college and get them feeling like they want to be more engaged in school. Different approaches were helpful with different age groups. For example, with the five-year-olds, we would say things like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” or just simply ask, “How was school today?” With the older kids, sometimes we would hear things like, “Ugh, another college thing?” The older students were a bit harder to work with just because they seemed kind of tired of college fairs and things like “the college talk” in general. I felt that I would be better using my talents with the really young kids, so I personally spent my time with that group.
Thursday, March 16
Thursday morning was our day for free time and exploring the city! Groups got up at different times and everyone had their own plans. Washington, D.C. is a super fun city with so much to see and do. The White House, the Capitol Building, Supreme Court, and the famous monuments are the obvious attractions. It’s the nation’s capital, but also a museum mecca. If you aren’t into museums, there are so many fun stores and cool restaurants to check out, too. Our methods of transportation were walking, Uber, and some brave souls learned how to use the Metro! Long story short, we all had a lot of fun Thursday. But not too much fun, because we had to be at our Boys & Girls Clubs in the afternoon before our kids arrived. The afternoon was spent doing homework and playing with our kids like usual.
Friday, March 17
On Friday morning, my group left with a few others to take an hour-long trip north to Baltimore, Maryland. We found ourselves in a very poor neighborhood right in urban Baltimore. I did some research on the neighborhood we were in and found that in the last census, the average household income was $15,000 and nearly half of households were below the poverty line. Those numbers shook me. We were to work on a community garden for the morning. This community garden was created and is maintained by an organization called The 6th Branch. The 6th Branch acquired a few plots of land in the middle of this neighborhood and converted it to a functioning garden. This is a food-insecure neighborhood, and residents are miles away from a grocery store that sells fruits and vegetables. Even if they wanted fruits and vegetables, many cannot get to the store because they don’t have cars and don’t want to spend hours using public transportation round-trip. Volunteers of The 6th Branch plant, grow, and harvest fresh fruit and vegetables for this neighborhood for free. This was an incredible experience because I had never been to, let alone worked on, a community garden before.
With garden hoes and shovels in hand, our job that day was to remove all the ice off the tops of the garden plots and stir up the soil, making it loose again for future planting. It wasn’t as fun as planting seeds or harvesting vegetables, but it was work that needed to be done for the wellbeing of the garden. I found myself needing to step away from the hard labor for a moment, as I am not in shape, so I kept myself useful by picking up trash around the area, which was another job we could do. It was unsettling when the leaders told us to let them know if we found any needles because there would need to be a special way to discard waste like that. It exposed the dark secrets that certain neighborhoods can hold, and how there are so many more levels to social, economic, and criminal issues in a community.
We drove back to D.C. and quickly got to work on making decorations and creating activities for a St. Patrick’s Day festival for the students that day. The festival ended up being a huge hit and it was fun to see the kids enjoying everything we put together for them.
Saturday, March 18
Closing time. Open all the doors and let us out into the world. Us USFSP students were up at 4:30 A.M. (Akyanna has a magical way about her that gets you up and moving immediately while still being so gentle and kind.) We were on the road a little past 5:00. The drive down felt a million times easier and more fun. We stopped for an early dinner at a cute, hole-in-the-wall Mexican place somewhere outside Savannah, Georgia. Never forget those burritos. We got back to campus at a reasonable hour that night. Some of us booked it to the hot shower, and some of us didn’t do anything but get up to our rooms and collapse into a deep, much-needed slumber on the couch. Didn’t even make it to the bed. (Who, me?)
Shout-Outs
My USFSP friends: I love you guys and I’m grateful for everything about you. It sure says a lot about your character to choose to come on this adventure. This week is one I’ll never forget, and I’m honored to call you my friends.
Akyanna, Pablo, and Juan particularly: We can’t thank you enough for handling the very long trip on the road, especially in those hours of the late night/very early morning when driving on a straight, flat, boring state road is the last thing you wanted to be doing. We couldn’t have arrived in D.C. or back home safely without your dedication.
Katie, Kayla, Grace, and Eddie: You guys were awesome and we miss you dearly. Thank you for everything you did to make the week a success and for helping us fall in love with service even more.
Mr. Shawn Osborn and the staff of Richard England Clubhouse 14: Thank you for your warm, welcoming attitudes toward us and for showing us how valuable service and volunteering is. You had a huge part in making this week life-changing.
Our fellow volunteers: How could we ever forget the laughs we shared and the memories made? Keep in touch, and never forget that we share this bond forever! For you guys as well: It sure says a lot about your character to choose to come on this adventure.
“We didn’t give up our spring break. We took advantage of it.”