Waubonsee students who participated in the 2018 Alternative Spring Break
Many college students take advantage of their spring break to visit friends and family or go to beaches and other exotic locations. Some students, though, use their break to volunteer and help others.
The Waubonsee Community College Alternative Spring Break (ASB) Program gives students the opportunity to spend time helping a cause while they are away from the campus. In March 2018, a group of students left northern Illinois to go to Richmond, Ky. to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity®. The students did work on the local Habitat ReStore shop, which provides necessary funds for Habitat projects, renovated the Habitat offices and worked on Habitat buildings that would soon become family homes.
“My favorite part was on the job site,” said Emmanuel Noufele, a computer engineering student at Waubonsee.
Service project trips like this give students the opportunity to have different experiences and to learn new skills while giving back to the community in interesting ways.
Noufele is from the Republic of Cameroon in Africa where these kinds of projects are part of life.
“I enjoy doing community service. In Cameroon, we did things like this every summer. I want to give my time to help people have a good life.”
Other students on the trip had the same feeling.
“I love service projects, so being in Kentucky [on the ASB] was like being a child in a candy store,” said Nicole Gamble, an environmental biology student at Waubonsee.
Meg Junk, Student Life Coordinator at Waubonsee, organizes and oversees the trips and has the opportunity to see the immediate impact on students.
“It’s really awesome to work with the students each year. Not only do they dedicate their time to a cause, but each of them grows throughout the week, learning more about themselves and the world. They all walk away with new perceptions of the world and a dedication to making a difference,” said Junk.
In addition to the satisfaction of helping a cause and gaining experience, participation in the ASB gets added to students’ co-curricular transcript. The co-curricular transcript is the record of college activities outside of class and is a valuable tool in presenting information about a student to employers, for scholarship applications and 4-year college applications upon completion at Waubonsee.
“The co-curricular transcript is a great tool to provide evidence of student achievements, but more importantly, how these experiences have assisted in the student’s growth and development,” said Dr. Mary Tosch, Student Life Manager at Waubonsee.
As valuable as the co-curricular transcript is, though, the student experience is the most important part of the ASB. Students who go on the trip experience and see things differently.
“When the trip started, I worried that I would not get along with everyone, but I ended the trip with some friends that I never thought I would be friends with. I did not think this trip would teach me life lessons, but learning to get to know others was definitely one of them,” added Gamble.
The students who went on the ASB trip in 2018 would highly recommend it to others.
“It more than met my expectations. I plan to go next year,” Noufele said.
