Ģ����Ƶios

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 6, 2012

Ģ����Ƶios student volunteers travel to Antigua for Spring Break

At the end of the week, 11 Ģ����Ƶios-Bloomington student volunteers, ranging in age from 18 to 40, will travel to Antigua, Guatemala through Ģ����Ƶios-Bloomington’s Alternative Spring Break program. This is the first service trip to Guatemala for Ģ����Ƶios-Bloomington, but its fifth international service trip. The first year, in 2007, Ģ����Ƶios volunteers traveled to Virginia and then to Calnali, Mexico the following four years.

“The Alternative Spring Break initiative of Ģ����Ƶios-Bloomington’s Center for Civic Engagement demonstrates our campus commitment to model a service-oriented learning environment for our students,” said Chancellor John Whikehart. “Additionally, by providing opportunities for international volunteerism, students in the Alternative Spring Break program are becoming globalized citizens.”

Students and three Ģ����Ƶios faculty members will be staying in resident host-homes in Antigua during the week of March 12. Working with Maximo Nivel, a nonprofit organization, students will lay concrete and install support beams in a home that is being built for a woman who runs an after-school program out of her home. Students also will work in the after-school program and interact with the children. Ģ����Ƶios volunteers are taking Spanish-language children’s books to donate to the after-school program. On the final day of the trip, volunteers will get a break and travel to climb Pacaya Volcano, about an hour outside of Antigua.

“The amount of applications we receive for Alternative Spring Break continues to grow each year,” said Chelsea-Rood Emmick, director of Ģ����Ƶios-Bloomington’s Center for Civic Engagement. “Some of the students who participate in the program experience many firsts, including first time out of the country and even first time on an airplane.”

Photographs from Ģ����Ƶios’s Alternative Spring Break in Antigua, Guatemala will be on display in the Flashlight Gallery of the Ģ����Ƶios John Waldron Arts Center during the month of April. Visit the gallery at 122 S. Walnut St. on First Friday, April 6 for the opening reception. 

Ģ����Ƶios () is the state’s largest public postsecondary institution and the nation’s largest singly accredited statewide community college system serving nearly 200,000 students annually. Ģ����Ƶios has campuses throughout Indiana. It serves as the state’s engine of workforce development, offering affordable degree programs and training that are aligned with the needs of its community along with courses and programs that transfer to other colleges and universities in Indiana. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association.