Everyone looks forward to spring break. At Western, spring break is called Reading Week, and is situated (inconveniently) during mid-February. In November, I was already looking forward to Reading Week, and thinking about how I wanted to spend my time.
I saw posts on Facebook about a program through the school called “Alternative Spring Break” or ASB. There were a variety of locations, some of them more exotic than others. As I looked through the volunteer projects that each trip offered, I found myself falling for a trip to New Orleans, working on a build with Habitat for Humanity.
Before Reading Week, the group had two meetings, and had to choose a location to go to volunteer in the local community. I went to the Boys and Girls Club, where I spent a day hanging out with local kids and fellow ASB participants.
As the trip grew closer, I grew weary. I only knew one person going on the trip, I was sick, and the flood of midterms and projects (both before and after Reading Week) were causing me a lot of stress. My parents asked if I even felt up to going on the trip, worried that my ambition would make my health worse.
We drove for 24 hours, over night, slowly getting more comfortable with one another. We spent our first day in Louisiana in the French Quarter, touring museums, which was welcome after a full day and night squashed on the bus.
On Monday, our service started. First, the group split into three and went to the Lower 9th Ward to volunteer. The Lower 9th Ward has a lower socio-economic status, and was hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina.
Two of the three groups helped cultivate community gardens, and my group was sent to the only grocery store in the neighborhood. The Lower 9th Ward is considered a ‘food desert’ because there are no grocery stores within a two-mile radius. So after the hurricane, a man decided to start a grocery store so that the residents would not have to bus to another city to do their shopping. After he gave us a tour, he showed us where we would be working: helping him build a Laundromat in the back of the building- again, the only one in the area.
From Tuesday through Friday, we woke up at 6am, and spent the day at our build sites. Our group split in two and was working on two houses, down the street from one another. As we worked, people would drive by and thank us for our work, ask where we were from, and generally welcome us to the area. I think that the whole group was somewhat surprised by how friendly and welcoming everyone in the area was.
On Thursday, the woman who’s home we were building came to visit us and help work on her house. Some of us spent hours talking to her, learning about her life and her history, and I think that we were all amazed by her.
At the end of each day, after dinner and showers, our group had a reflection period, where we discussed what we learned and saw and did each day. This was like getting to see the day through someone else’s eyes: everyone had experienced the same day differently and learned different things.
I learned so much this week, more than I ever thought possible. I helped paint the entire inside of a house, learned how to use power tools (!) and watched a group of people bond over their mutual love of helping others. At times, it was exhausting, and when we had to redo our work, it seemed endless.
I’ve been fortunate to go on group trips before, but I have never been on a service trip, and I have never grown so close with a group so quickly. By the end of the week, we were all planning our future volunteer outings together and discussing how we wanted to bring what we had learned back to London.
I am so glad that I took a risk and decided to participate in this trip. The people were absolutely incredible, and every person on my trip added to my experience. I can’t wait to keep volunteering locally, and to help other people experience the magic of service learning.