Groups travel to Upstate communities
USC Community Service Programs offered two alternative fall break trips this year that aimed to educate participants and make an immediate difference in the community.
The two trips, to Spartanburg and Greenville, allowed students to help out, even within a short time frame.
“I think it’s such a short break that it can really easily feel like it’s just a long weekend, (like) you’re not going to do anything important,” said Eliza Binney, director of the Alternative Break Council and a second-year cardiovascular tech student. “But when you go and spend those three days, it’s only three days, but you can make a huge impact.”
Kaeli Weaver, a fourth-year accounting student, led four other students to Spartanburg to help Christmas in Action, an organization that repairs and rebuilds homes for elderly, low-income and disabled people. They helped two elderly, widowed women with home repairs they couldn’t complete on their own.
They also spent one day volunteering with Operation Stand Down, which coordinates with area churches to provide medical and dental care, job opportunities, housing and meals for homeless veterans. The group distributed clothing and made food packages for more than 500 veterans.
Weaver said this trip helped change the perspective of the students who participated.
“You feel like you’re helping people, but at the same time it’s a growing experience for the students who actually go, because they learn about themselves,” Weaver said. “You come back, and it definitely changes your outlook on how you view your daily life on campus, and you start looking for ways that you can do something different and something that would help back in Columbia.”
In Greenville, 10 students helped with the local Special Olympics by helping with registration and officiating bocce ball tournaments. They also built trails for Camp Spearhead, a program for special needs children and adults, and relocated the camp’s archery course.
“I think for the students, it was multi-faceted,” said Coleman Carlisle, a faculty leadership coach who went on the Greenville trip. “First of all, I think it was a really good opportunity for them to get to work with a population that’s different than them. Second, it was a great experience for them to work with an organization that has kind of a local and national reputation and get to see how kind of a large event like that can affect so many people.”
Both of the fall break excursions had reflection activities led by the trip leaders, which some trip participants said was the best part of the experience.
“It’s a chance for them to kind of understand in a deeper meaning why we’re doing the service that we’re doing,” said Ashley Byrd, a faculty leadership coach who went on the Spartanburg trip. “All of the students just explained that it was an eye-opening experience. They never really realized that there were that many homeless veterans or there were that many people that really needed that sort of assistance right in our area.”