New Orleans service trip
Syracuse University Protestant Campus Ministry
Syracuse, NY
Our Team of Twelve traded the final week of winter break to help
rebuild a small portion of New Orleans. Over seven days, we gutted
furniture and appliances that had been drowned in 12-feet of standing
water, salvaged personal belongings, stripped mold-covered sheetrock
and insulation, and ultimately reduced homes to their concrete
foundations and wooden skeletons. Memories are out sequence but the
feelings remain, like a dream. We never dreamt that we could connect so
personally to strangers and their homes through our work and presence.
We returned to Syracuse changed people and now share these messages:
- New Orleans is still recovering, but with continued
attention and assistance, its citizens will rebuild.
- Culture and spirit are not able to be defeated. They
do not get damp or grow mold and end up thrown to the curb to be buried
in a trash heap.
- Turn the dream metaphor around. New Orleans was
reality. Syracuse is the dream. Here we get bogged down with the daily
grind and stress. We don't stop and realize what an opportunity we have
and just how fortunate we are. Here, for the most part, it is an "I"
centered universe. We are inspired to change that.
Kelly Sprinkle
Second-round result
|
Syracuse: New Orleans
mission trip
|
80% |
| Columbia: Hit-the-road
mission trip |
20% |
| Read
both entries |
|
|
R.A.M.P.ing it up
University of Houston
Houston, TX
Working with the R.A.M.P. Project in San Antonio, our students spent
their spring break making it possible for those with disabilities to
get in and out of their homes. When one young teen with cerebral palsy
'tested out' the winding ramp we built from his mobile home to the
sidewalk, we learned that it was the first time in his 13 years that he
had left home without being carried down the stairs by his mother or a
family friend. We formed a kind of 'honor guard' as he worked his way
down the ramp on his half crutches, stopping more than once to lean
against the rail and ballisters we had built. At the base of the ramp
at last, he propped himself up,raised his arms over his head and
yelled, "I did it myself!' We were all in tears, and one of our
University of Houston UCM students turned to another and said, "This is
what we are called to do: change the entire world, one life at a time."
Guinn Blackwell-Eagleson
| Second-round result |
| Houston: R.A.M.P.ing it
up |
72% |
| Keene State: Boston
service trips |
28% |
| Read
both entries |
|
