Spring Break Experience

The following is what a current Valpo junior from Wasau, WI has to say about her spring break service trips. Enjoy!
Valparaiso University has a lot of different service options that students can participate in over Spring Break or the summer. As a sophomore on campus, I have had the privilege of going on two of these types of service oriented trips. Last year I went to Nicaragua with the Education Team to teach elementary school children English. Without being an education major, I was welcomed into the group and was able to broaden my horizons by travelling to a foreign country for two weeks. I was able to work on my Spanish since I had learned in Jr. High School and interact with students unable to speak English. I still receive emails from some of my students that I had there.
While that was an amazing experience, this year I decided to stay slightly closer to home. Through the Social Action Leadership Team on campus, I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans for a week to work on hurricane relief efforts. It has been approximately five years since the devastation has occurred, but there is still plenty of work remaining. For a week I stayed in a church with eleven other students from Valpo. We had an energetic cook named Brenda that shared her experiences of being around during the storm.
Our work consisted of finishing up two houses a few miles down the road. Each had approximately seven feet of water damage from the levees breaking. The first day we were able to hear the stories of the homeowners; one of the men, a firefighter, explained how his division saved upwards of around 500 people from the flooding. Stories of alligators swimming in the water past houses and people breaking through their attics with axes were mind blowing. Now, every attic is equipped with an ax, and anyone that owns a boat must leave the key inside and have the gas tank full just in case it needs to be taken in the event of an emergency.
Physical labor on our end to restore the houses included sanding, mudding, texturing, priming, and painting. The work was at times monotonous, but the looks and gratitude from the homeowners made it entirely worth the blisters accumulated on our hands. It was humbling to know how we could help others so much with only a few hours of our time. On Thursday of the week, we changed up our scenery by air-boating into the marsh to replant hundreds of trees. With Ball Cypress trees in hand and a shovel type device, we covered the marsh with new baby trees for literally as far as the eye could see. The trees are supposed to help block the strong winds caused by hurricanes from reaching the inland areas with as great of an impact as they typically would.
All in all, my trip to New Orleans and my earlier trip to Nicaragua have given me a greater appreciation for what I have and a greater desire to help others. The university here really encourages students to take advantages outside of campus to learn and grow as an individual. I have learned so much from my service oriented experiences, and I can honestly say that they have impacted my life. If you decide to come to Valpo, try to fit in a time, even if it’s only a week, to commit yourself to service somewhere around the world. I guarantee you won’t regret it.