As you read and listen to media reports, you could easily assume that all college students headed south to exotic places during their spring vacation. Actually that is not true as many of us know. A lot of college students give up some of their spring break to assist people who are not as well off as they are. Here at WPI, spring vacation saw twenty-two of us give up a few vacation days for our Appalachia in Worcester Project sponsored by the Newman Club. We were the living witnesses that far too often media reports about college students do not reflect what actually we are like.
Monday afternoon of last week saw many of us arriving back on campus and immediately , you might say, reporting to the Religious Center to gather supplies, etc, for our project. The next morning, Tuesday, saw five carloads of students and faculty headed to Youville House, a shelter for battered women and their children. Once there we repaired and painted bathrooms, offices, kitchens, parlors and hallways of two of their major buildings. That day alone we did over one hundred and forty hours of manual labor. A supervisor at Youville House said it best when she said it would take a months working time of a janitor to accomplish what we did that day alone. Another group of our volunteers went to the Youville Food Pantry and put every thing in order there. By Wednesday afternoon a few of us had finished the task of putting away all our tools, etc, so that they are in good order for our next project.
We are grateful to all those who volunteered their time especially Prof. Brian Stiltner who joined us. The people at Youville House are grateful for our efforts and more important is the fact that we demonstrated to the clients at Youville House that people, especially at WPI, do reach out to those down on their luck and give them hope that better days are ahead.