A Spring Break Well Spent: VLS Students Volunteer Backbreaking Work to Those In Need
July 17, 2008
by Daphne Larkin, correspondent
The sunburned skin and glow of satisfaction found on the faces of several VLS students returning from spring break were not the result of lazy days on the beach or wicked runs down snowy mountain trails.
For 12 VLS students who spent their spring breaks volunteering service, the sunburns came from the sun in Biloxi, Miss., and the Negev Desert in Israel, and those satisfied looks were the result of hard work well done.
Two groups of students chose alternative spring break plans this year, taking their time off, which would have otherwise been spent studying or relaxing, to serve communities beyond the small Vermont town they currently call home.
Eight students went to Biloxi to rebuild housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and four students traveled to Israel to connect with the land and people by completing service projects benefiting local communities in the Negev Desert.
The only two women of a group of eight that went to Biloxi with Habitat for Humanity to build a house in the devastated Gulf region talked excitedly about their trip.
"This trip is something I think everybody should do at one point or another in a lifetime," said Florence Cornish, JD ’08. "I sit here and complain about little things, but these were people (in Biloxi) who lived in tents for weeks and went without water."
Her cohort, Jenn Ukeritis, LLM ’08, said she went on the trip because spending four days building a house "sounded like fun."
In Biloxi the students joined about 200 other volunteers living at Yankie Stadium, a former football stadium named for a local prominent family that the Salvation Army took over just prior to the hurricane.
There they learned new terms like "overbracing" and used power tools like electric drills with cement bits, miter, skill and jig saws.
Their job was to put together the pieces of a prefabricated house as a test run for 2,500 Jimmy Carter Work Project volunteers that will raise 250 such homes.
Their days began at around 6 a.m. when they prepared for a bus trip to nearby Pascagoula where they worked on one of about 10 work sites in the area.
By the end of each day their bodies were sore and their skin was sweaty and blistered, but the students were motivated by the startling statistic that only 15 percent of the community has actually moved back to the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina.
Likewise, four Jewish Law Students Association members were moved by the fact that Israel's southern Negev region encompasses 60 percent of the country's landmass but is home to less than 10 percent of its population, resulting in overpopulated city centers.
These students spent their spring breaks with the Jewish National Fund's Blueprint Negev project.
The project, in its third year, is dedicated to cultivating sustainable communities in the Negev Desert and protecting environmental resources. Sustainable development of the Negev will allow for a better use of all of Israel’s assets and will narrow the current social and economic gaps.
Sarah Sprague MSEL ’08/JD ’11, Emilee Drobbin MSEL ’05/JD ’08, Robert Gardner JD ’08, and Adam Joshua Ben Gan JD/MSEL ’10 each fund-raised $1,000 for the Blueprint Negev project to participate in the trip.
All but Sprague had been to Israel before. After the trip each one of them wore the glow that only comes from the experience of mixing sweat with ancient earth in seven days of communal work.
"Once you go and you have an experience with the country and the people, you are doing your best to get back there," Gardner said.
Each day brought a different project. On their first day the group, which was one of three waves of about 300 students participating in the project, rehabilitated a playground at a children's after school center. There they cleaned up broken glass and cracked tiles, built a stage and benches around a basketball court and dug a garden.
"It rained that day in the desert," Ben Gan said with a wide grin on his face. Rain is a rare and special experience in the Negev Desert.
The students spent one day in schools and rehabilitation centers and one day fixing up a desert vineyard for the season to come. They built a flower walking path to provide greenspace for a low income neighborhood in Jerusalem. They saw Bedouins herding sheep under the desert sun, and brought in the Sabbath at the Wailing Wall.
Staying at a local youth hostel, the four students also met and were inspired by local political leaders and university students who have donated their army stipends to the building of desert communities.
For those four students and the eight who stayed stateside to serve, this spring break left a permanent mark on their lives. So much so that Sprague says she plans to organize another Blueprint Negev trip next year. As for Cornish, she plans to continue her volunteer work sooner than that.
"After the bar, I'm going to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity in Atlanta," Cornish said. "It touched me that much."
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