No one would mistake the hills of West Virginia for Cabo San Lucas. But it's a spring break destination anyway, at least for Creighton students who want to make a difference in the world more than they want to get a tan.
It all started in 1983 when a Creighton nursing student proposed a spring break trip with six other students to eastern Kentucky to serve the residents there. Today, the Spring Break Service Trips program sends out more than 200 students all over the country to serve and learn.
Each spring, about 30 groups of students travel to a different community to work with an organization already serving there. Some groups head for the cities such as Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans. Other students travel to rural South Dakota on a reservation or in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia.
They serve the young, the old, the poor and the neglected.
Most recently, students gutted houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Others swung hammers to build houses for Habitat for Humanity in Oklahoma. Others marched with hotel employees striking for a new contract in the chill Chicago wind. Tutoring young children. Sorting thrift store donations. Visiting the sick. That's just a sample of the service performed during Spring Break.
Whatever they did, though, students said that it changed them forever.
The disaster really hit home for Junior biology major Jenna Steffan, as she recovered photo albums and other personal items for a homeowner in Louisiana and gutted the house to make it ready for repair work.
"It really makes the struggle of the people of New Orleans my struggle," she said.
Ann Stacy helped the Daughters of Charity in Chicago, where she learned the power of love without judgment from a woman who helped teen mothers.
Said Sacey, "She told me when you judge someone, they stop trusting you and just walk away."
Often students come away with not only memories and new-found wisdom but also new friends. Even though they are generally grouped with people they don't know very well, students form connections that last long past spring break.
Josh Steere, a sophomore studying political science and chemistry, remembers his group's search for the right exit interstate in St. Louis, all these people joking around who one week earlier had been complete strangers.
"Those bonds will never fully go away," he said.
The Spring Break Service Trips are founded on five pillars of Catholic Social Thought: service, justice, community, simplicity, and reflection. Through service, they try to meet the immediate needs of people. They work for justice so that the needs won't always be so great. They remember that we are all part of the human family through community. They practice simplicity in lifestyle and thought. Plus, they reflect with each other on the experiences shared and lessons learned.
While student-led (and largely student-funded), the Spring Break Service Trips also are supported with administrative help from the Creighton Center for Service and Justice, which keeps the Jesuit mission of Creighton at the center of everything it does.