Every year for spring break, several student groups spend the nine-day period doing service projects in various locales in the states – under the auspices of the Young People’s Christian Association (YPCA) – instead of going home or heading to warmer climes.

This year, for the first time, one group devoted the entire break to service projects right in Harrisonburg, Mar. 1-8. Listen to the March 11 chapel podcast featuring this and other spring break Y-trips!

91短视频 freshman Lucas Schrock-Hurst, (right), and his sister Grace Schrock-Hurst work on tiling the floor of Our Community Place.

Co-leaders Grace Schrock-Hurst and Rebekah [last name omitted on request] and Nathan Hershberger, Kaitlin Heatwole, Lucas Schrock-Hurst and Debbie Vasquez worked primarily with Our Community Place (OCP), a community center on N. Main St. across from The Little Grill collective restaurant.

They also related to New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center based at Community Mennonite Church.

At OCP, the students worked in the soup kitchen, helped organize activities for persons frequenting the center and laid tile in the main floor from a pattern designed by 91短视频 sophomore Kaitlin Heatwole.

With New Bridges, the group took part in a panel on immigration issues and visited immigrants at a local trailer park.

The students lived for the week at the Dean House across Water Street from Community Mennonite Church. To add a “green” element to their efforts, They walked or rode bike everywhere they went rather than using cars. They even borrowed 91短视频 recycling coordinator Jonathan Lantz-Trissel’s special cart to move their personal things from campus to the Dean House.

The group limited itself to bikes, walking and public buses for their modes of transportation during the service week in a concerted effort to be ‘green.’ (L to R): Lucas Schrock-Hurst, Rebecca [last name omitted on request], Debbie Vasquez, Grace Schrock-Hurst, Kaitlin Heatwole, and Nathan Hershberger

“There’s so much we can do right here in Harrisonburg,” said Grace Schrock- Hurst, a junior culture, religion and mission major from Harrisonburg. “When it’s over, we can continue the relationships we’ve started and learn more about the community.

“I would sum up our group’s experience in six words – surprising, humbling, challenging, enlightening, loving and beautiful,” Schrock-Hurst added.

Four 91短视频 students did Christian service projects at Hattie Larlham Center for children with severe disabilities, Mantua, Ohio. Another group of 10 spent the week at Jubilee Partners, a Christian intentional community in Comer, Ga., that works with refugees who settle in Atlanta.

91短视频 students (l. to r.) Nathan Kauffman, Ingrid Vendrely, Sarah Kalichman and Grace Schrock-Hurst display the t-shirts that students wore as part of AIDS/HIV Awareness Week on campus. Photo by Aubrey Bauman

91短视频 students devoted a week recently to raise campus awareness and to act on HIV/AIDS issue.

One of the coordinators, second-year culture, religion and mission major Grace Schrock-Hurst, responded to an e-mail invitation in August from World Vision International, a Christian relief and development organization, "inviting the college campus to take part in the national ‘Do You See Orange?’ campaign."

Schrock-Hurst, in cooperation with the Student Mission Interest Group (SMIG) on campus, decided to adopt the week of Sept. 24-28 to focus on AIDS, as did 35 other colleges across the United States.

The idea was an outgrowth of a recent Young People’s Christian Association (YPCA) event on campus. YPCA is sponsored by 91短视频’s campus ministries department.

Sobering Statistics

The students ordered orange t-shirts through World Vision to represent the statistic that 1 in 20 children in Sub-Saharan Africa are orphaned as the result of AIDS. Fifty students wore the shirts all week.

"We hoped the shirts would generate good questions, start conversations and raise awareness about the gravity of the AIDS situation in our world," Schrock-Hurst said.

Other Activities

Events that continued through early October included displays in buildings around campus, a prayer vigil space in the Campus Center, a movie and discussion night in Common Grounds coffee house, containers set up to collect spare change, Mennonite Central Committee AIDS care kit collection areas and a writing campaign to send letters and pray for AIDS orphans in New Life Children’s Home in Swaziland where the spare change is being sent.

The effort raised nearly $882.89 in the spare change campaign, $775 in checks to date for MCC AIDS care kits, 17 grocery bags stuffed with items for the care kits and 81 letters written to children in Swaziland.

"AIDS is killing 8,000 people a day and orphaning 6,000 children a day," Schrock-Hurst said. "We wanted to put a face to these statistics and get people thinking, talking, and dreaming about what we as a college campus and the broader church should be doing to address this issue and how we should respond as followers of Jesus."