From sun and sand to community service: The new Spring Break is nothing like the old

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/nola2011.jpg” caption=”McMaster students will travel to New Orleans this week as part of the University’s Mac Serve Reading Week service-learning program. The team will work on a Habitat for Humanity worksite, helping to reconstruct housing for those affected by Hurricane Katrina.”]It's not what most students imagine when they think of Reading Week.

Framing a house, working in a soup kitchen, cooking in a community kitchen – all are about as far as one could get from the stereotypical spring break fare of snowboarding in the north or sunbathing in the south.

But those jobs are exactly what more than 100 McMaster students are tackling this week as they fan out across the continent as part of Mac Serve.

The service-learning program, organized by the University's Student Success Centre, has included more than 30 trips since 2004, sending teams of students to domestic destinations such as Vancouver and Winnipeg, as well as international locations such as Little Rock, Arkansas and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The groups work assist with projects of particular importance to the communities they're placed in.

This year, that includes working on a Habitat for Humanity worksite in New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Ninth Ward, building and repairing houses in Cuernavaca, southwest of Mexico City, and working in a community kitchen in Vancouver.

Two groups, including one of varsity athletes, will stay in downtown Hamilton, where they will work with a number of social services agencies.

“Mac Serve is meant to unsettle you,” said Adam Kuhn, the University's manager of community service-learning and civic engagement. “The Reading Week trips help students see other people's world views. They learn that they can effect positive change, and they return home much more aware of the world around them.”

Trips include time for reflection and discussion of the issues facing the communities students stay in, which range from poverty and natural disasters to food security and trade policies.

To prepare, teams met throughout the winter to hear from guest speakers with expertise in social issues, good citizenship and team building.

Sheila Sammon, an associate professor of social work, recently spoke to participants about the importance of being sensitive to the communities they stay in. To illustrate the point, she asked students to imagine a scenario in which their professors were able to observe
them at home while studying.

“It wouldn't be very comfortable, would it?” she asked the students. “There's an inherent inequality between visitor and visited, so you must always be thinking about how you act upon entering a community.”

Sammon also led the group in a discussion of their own expectations of the service-learning trips.

“You're not going to save the world in one week,” Sammon told the students, “but realize that no matter where you go, you will come back as better citizens.”

Participants have been tasked with blogging about their experience and will contribute to a photo project about each trip.

A post-Reading Week wrap-up event will also be held for students' friends, family and the University community.