Basically all you could see was mold everywhere. And it was just up to the top, you could see the watermarks on the walls, everything was stacked up together, you couldn't really see the the floor or where you were walking, whether it was a living room or anything like that. So it was really interesting and eye opening. Yeah,
I mean, this is definitely something that you're not going to encounter in your everyday life. And I think joy of helping people is really good for myself. So I mean, I would imagine other people also would enjoy it just because of that. Yeah, it was really fun. I got to beat down a wall with a sledge hammer. So don't get to do that. And now you don't.
Tearing down and starting over again. After a natural disaster, that's the only choice some people have. For others. making the choice to give a helping hand can offer some perspective. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Spring break for most college students is a chance to relax, recharge batteries, or maybe head off to a warmer climate. For other students. It's a time for service. In 2018, Heartland Community College students headed to a portion of Houston, Texas, devastated by Hurricane. We talked to a few of them about why they do it and what they saw.
My name is Stephanie Alvarez Rivera, I'm the Student Engagement graduate assistant. I oversee Heartland Activities Committee as the advisor. And I also coordinate the Alternative Spring Break.
And what did you start as graduate assistant?
I started this past August so 2017.
Yes. And will we be here through the end of this year? Will you be here beyond that?
Now I'll be here till may tell us a little
bit about the alternative spring break program, what it is? Sure who's involved what you do.
Alternative spring break is a program that we do here on campus, where we take a group of students, depending on how many sign up, normally it's about 18 or 20 students, we go around and help out different communities that may need help. Normally, we do hurricane relief, at least last year, we went to Houston, and we did some work down there this year, we'll be obviously going to Wilmington, North Carolina. But in the past, they've also gone to Colorado, South Carolina, some local places. So it's basically just trying to give back to the community and get our students to come outside of Illinois as well.
Well, tell me a little bit about the experience going to Houston last year. What was that? Like? Did you have any notions of what it would be like that surprised you once consumer there? Well,
I've done Alternative Spring Break kind of trips before as a student and my other college that I went to. So coming in as a coordinator was a little different, and particularly because we do trip leader. So we have two student trip leaders that run the whole thing. And I try to be as hands off as possible throughout. So they try to make decisions about where we eat, where we stop all that good stuff. So going there. It was interesting guy with like, 20 students that you have no idea you've only met ones. So that was an interesting experience. But we kind of got along pretty great. Once we got there. We stayed at a church and they had cots everywhere. And then in the center, I'm assuming we're like the assemblies kind of meet, Miss where the food was served or where we would meet as a giant group. But it was really interesting. That particular trip, the students decided to stay with the family that we were assigned from the first day. So it was this couple old military couple. And their house hadn't been touched since the hurricane. So when we got there in March, that would have been eight months. So we when he got inside the house, basically all you could see was mold everywhere. And it was just up to the top, you could see the watermarks on the walls, everything was stacked up together. You couldn't really see the floor or where you were walking, whether it was a living room or anything like that. So it was really interesting and eye opening, because the trip I've done before we built houses. This time we were practically taking it apart.
So what kind of special measures did you have to take to go into that area? I imagine you have to be careful the mold? Probably there there other hazards, what sort of things did the students have to do to work on this thing safely.
So they provided us with everything that we needed. We didn't really have to bring anything more than just ourselves. So we got gloves, we got masks, we got eye goggles. And when we were in the house, we were very adamant about everyone sticking with putting a mask on if they touched a wall or were working on something and they adjusted their mask, we ask that they went outside and change the mask. And when we went out to lunch we made sure we went to wash our hands before we ate. So we were very careful throughout We also asked our students to wear close toed shoes, although we still had a couple incidents but that just kind of happens.
Were you demoing walls are you tearing out drywall? What sort of things was the group doing?
So for this project, we took everything out. So that's all the TVs are everything that we could see. And then we also took out a lot of the drywall, the main objective was to get the skeleton basically of the house to see if we can move forward and rebuild it. Unfortunately, it wasn't able to it was just too long, which was a little disappointing for everyone, because they've been working, you know, all week to find out that either way, they were gonna get demolished the house. So it was unfortunate, but they still enjoyed it.
You said that some of the students stayed with the family that that was their house? What was their situation? Like? What did you learn about them? Some people get in a situation like that, or their home gets damaged. And they are fully insured. And it's traumatic, no doubt, but they do get some degree of replacement. Others aren't so lucky, others can't get flood insurance. Some say it's this type of damage, you weren't covered for what type of situation? Where are these people in?
Well, from what it seemed like this couple was staying with either family or friends from what I remember. And they seem fragile, you know. And they, I remember when they first came in and kind of met everyone, you could really feel the emotion because they really care for this home. They've been there for a long time. I think the husband had like a parlor on the back. So he worked from there. So they you know, they built their, their family in their home from from that from that space. So talking about it and kind of visiting back and seeing all the work that we were doing. It was very emotional. And I think that's what really got our students, especially our trip leaders to say, hey, we decided to stay with this family. And then even throughout the trip, every time they came back, it was just a very emotional and intense situation.
So when the students were done in your head at home, was there anything anybody had to say about the experience that they reflected on that they thought, Oh, this is an eye opening experience? Oh, I'm definitely going to do this next year. What was your reaction?
The last day we ended on a Thursday, we spent four days at that site, we actually went to the Gulf of Mexico, and kind of did a little bit of a reflection thing where we grab the stick in a rock and we threw the stick and the rock into the water and had a really intimate moment with each other about what we just went through. A lot of the students were really glad that they came out here, they were surprised by how long has been since the hurricane happen, and how much they're still to be done, or how some of the houses were touched. So I think for them, it was very eye opening. And there's a couple that are actually coming back on this year's trip, which I'm really excited. One of them will be our trip leader. So I'm excited about that. But for the most part, the general consensus was that they were thankful they were really grateful. They were exhausted. But meeting the family, I think overall is really what catches them. Because the work, you know, it's going in and out taking all these things out. But connecting with the family building a relationship, I think they brought in like tags, different military tags, so everyone had one, something to remember them by. So it was just very a touching moment, when you
are dealing with students that might be thinking about working with the upcoming alternative spring break and spending their spring break that way. What are some of the things that you tell them? They could they could go somewhere themselves have a vacation if they can scrape together the funds? Or maybe they could just sit on their couch for a week and watch Netflix? What are the things that you tell students who have an interest in this, that you would want them to know that spending their time this way is a benefit to them?
Honestly, I just I just wanted to let them know that this is a unique experience, I'm not only you get to travel, obviously, that's a natural perk from it. But you get to connect with people within Heartland that you've never met before. So you learn how to work with other people. And then you know, once they get there, the experience of helping others the gratitude that they get from the families, just the entire experience where they get to do something that is entirely not focused on them. It's really different. And I think for especially this generation coming up with you know, all the social media and things like that. And Netflix, it's really different because they don't get to watch Netflix that whole week. They don't really get to be on their phones that whole week. So they kind of get to come back to that pure kid. But also give back. So I think it's it's a great way for them to kind of take that home with them and it adds to their experience here at Heartland.
What does the organization do for alternative spring break? I know that there has to be some fundraising involved. But what are some things that are going on to fund these students going on this upcoming trip to the coastal Carolinas
we look for donors we look for sponsorship opportunities where the students maybe get sponsored by their church or someone back home. The other thing that we do is that we have a service learning one on one with to one credit course, basically the student attends a pre meeting, participates throughout the whole trip, does a reflection every night, attends the post meeting and then does reflection paper. And if they have financial aid, it covers
the trip. That's a big benefit to is that been going on for last spring break and this one coming up?
For my understanding, I think last year was the first time we did it, and I think half of the group took the class. Thanks definitely no problem. Thank you.
William Gallagher went to Texas for hurricane relief efforts his first year at Heartland and is planning on going again for alternative spring break in the coastal Carolinas. Hello, guys,
I'm Will. I'm a sophomore at Heartland Community College, going into electrical engineering planning to transfer to Southern Illinois and Edwardsville next semester.
So you went on the alternative spring break trip last year. Yeah, last
spring break. We went to Houston, Texas and did some hurricane relief, mostly clearing out houses and preparing for other teams to go in. And they came back in and like put up new drywall and new carpeting to just like repair the house instead of like tearing it down.
Why did you decide to spend your spring break last year that way?
Well, honestly, I was just like, I have nothing better to do. So you know, I'm might as well like try to help some people out during my free time.
Well, and also, you know, you gotta at least go somewhere a little warmer.
It will you're helping people it was it was pretty nice. We did go to the beach one day just like hanging out. It's still pretty cold. But it was a nice little adventure.
Have you ever done anything like that before? Any volunteering work?
No, I wasn't really particularly into like volunteering in high school. Definitely being at Heartland has made me more interested in getting involved.
The hurricane had actually happened a little bit before that. So we expecting to see,
yeah, well, like being in Illinois, you don't really see a whole lot of natural disasters besides like a tornado. So just seeing the damage that hurricane can do is really surprising.
What was the first time you went up to one of the areas that had been hit?
Well, there's trash like, littered throughout Street, and one of our main jobs was taking the trash out of the house, organizing it in specific piles for FEMA to come and pick up. So like it'd be like a computer pile or like a furniture pile?
Did you spend all your time working primarily on one house or a couple of houses? What did you how did they break up your work?
We went to two different sites. So I wasn't there the first day. But then the second day, we went to a new house that we stayed at for like the remaining four days, because it was pretty bad.
What did it looked like?
Well, the inside is like totally destroyed pretty much with water damage. And like everything needs to be tore out pretty much besides the frame of the house,
you mentioned having to make piles of like electronics and that sort of thing. Because it has to be separated. What sort of belongings were still in the house when I got hit was everything there was, you know, was it just as if they had to get away quickly, or just only big things that they couldn't have moved what was in there.
This is almost like all their possessions like there was giant heaps. And yeah, it's pretty crazy how like little time, and people little economic ability, you know, they can't hire people, like move all that stuff out of there. So all their possessions are pretty much destroyed. So they were really thankful that they had people that come and help them do this, at the very least get that prepared to be put back together, I guess. Yeah.
He said they were thankful. Did you get to meet any of the people whose houses you were working on?
Yeah, the homeowners came out on one of the days and like the tearful eights like hugged all of us, and like really were appreciative of our efforts. So it was nice to like, actually have a conclusion, be able to see what your help is doing.
When you wrapped everything up. And you headed back? Is there one thing that particularly struck you about the experience when you talk to the other students? Was there anything that surprised anyone or they found to be particularly impactful? Well, I
was really interested in seeing like, sort of organization that put all these people together, and were able to, like distribute them out into these communities and like, be able to help all these people, because that's definitely something I'd be interested in managing someday.
How do you think that could work into your current studies and your career plans?
Well, I'm really interested in like satellite communication, like satellite networks. So it'd be interesting to try to work out systems to distribute satellite internet to countries around the world who may not be able to have broadband internet directly.
Do you think that going on the spring break trip is something that would benefit other students in ways they might not realize what are some things you might say if somebody were not sure about it, or didn't know if they would want to go on these trips?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I went not knowing anyone on the trip. So it was a little hesitant at first, but definitely teaches you teamwork and teaches you how to work with others teaches you a lot about teamwork. Because, yeah, I didn't know any of the people going in. Do you make any friends? Yeah, I mean, good amount of friends and like, I'm gonna go this year. And now, I know a lot of people who I knew last year are gonna go this year also. So doing
it the second year in a row, is there anything different in your approach, or any thoughts that you'll have, as you're headed out to the Carolinas that you didn't have? When you went to Texas,
I just like to be able to maybe help lead for and maybe the people who are going for the first time maybe help them out to make them more comfortable?
Is this the type of thing that adds to the experience the students have here?
Yeah, I mean, this is definitely something that you're not going to encounter in your everyday life. And I think joy of helping people is really good for myself. So I mean, I would imagine other people also would enjoy it just because of that, regardless of like, the fun of hanging out with other people on this trip.
So even though it was a lot of work, it was
fun. Yeah, it was really fun. I got to beat down a wall with a sledge hammer. So don't get to do that. And now you don't. That was a first time than that.
Right. So I'm gonna look forward to thanks. Thanks for coming in.
Yeah, no problem. Thank you.
You've been listening to random acts of knowledge. For more information on the Heartland Community College alternative spring break program, visit heartland.edu. For more random acts of knowledge, find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you do your podcast listening
