Parkland students, staff, and volunteers stand outside of a Habitat build site on March 22, 2018. Front: Crew Leader. First row (left to right): Sara Clavey, Emily Grumish, Francisco Gamino, Victoria Varner, Ruthie Counter, Asia Battle, Keyvontae Finley, Roumaissa Kibech, Jeff Reed, and two Crew Leaders. Second row: Volunteer Coordinator, Tommy Zander, Jason Brown, Asa Greathouse, and Nafissa Maiga.
Greg Gancarz
Editor
For students seeking a departure from the typical spring break frivolities, Parkland’s Office of Student Life organized an Alternative Spring Break to Michigan this year.
In conjunction with the Firestone Center, a nonprofit organization that hosts service trips of Flint, Michigan, Parkland’s Student Life Activities Program Manager Joshua Clark coordinated a trip to Flint. Students and staff volunteered their time over break to aid in construction in Flint through five separate charitable organizations.
Flint was declared to be in a state of emergency in 2014 after dangerous lead contamination was detected in the city’s water supply.
The trip, which spanned from March 18–22, and included a total of 13 students, about half of whom were from Parkland’s Construction Design and Management Program. The program partnered with Student Life in organizing the trip. The other students came from the general student body. Two chaperones, Clark and Ruthie Counter, staff writer for marketing and public relations, went on the trip as well.
The Alternative Spring Break was organized by Clark after he was contacted by Annie Stoltman, the manager of the Firestone Center.
“Luckily, I am in a position to organize and lead a trip like this,” Clark said.
The trip to Flint by Parkland bus took about six hours one-way. Upon arrival at their quarters at the Firestone Center in Flint on Sunday, March 18, the students and staff were allotted time to settle in before departing for a tour of the city. The next three days consisted of construction work at various charity locations including East Side Mission, Franklin Ave Mission, and a Habitat for Humanity home. Meals for the participants were provided at the Firestone Center.
Emily Grumish, who heard about the trip at a Service-Learning Advisory Council meeting in February, attended as a student representative of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and Club Access. She said she did a bit of everything during her time volunteering.
“I helped scrape and paint walls in a classroom at the Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village. I also touched up walls in their gymnasium…helped clean and shine the gymnasium floor…[and] helped clean up a property for the Eastside Mission which was to become the future women’s alcohol and drug treatment facility,” Grumish said. “This included getting rid of all the trash, weeds, and other debris laying around on the property. At the Habitat for Humanity House Build, I helped with clean up and assisted in renovating the property.”
“The Firestone Center did an excellent job…connecting our service work to the community of Flint,” Clark said.
Each evening, after construction work, the volunteers had a speaker from the community come in and share the effects of the charity work over dinner.
“We learned a lot about the city and all about different programs that are helping the community get back on its feet,” Grumish said. “With each speaker, we went around the table introducing ourselves and sharing what we learned that day. Everyone had a different perspective. I was never expecting to form such a strong connection to students that were strangers to me just the week before.”
According to participants, the local community was “receptive,” “impressed,” and “grateful” for the volunteer work provided by Parkland students.
“They were impressed with the sheer amount of work we accomplished. All the evening speakers were impressed by how engaged, passionate, and thoughtful our students were. Everyone was encouraging, thankful, and wanted us to return,” Clark said.
The group began their trip back to Parkland on Thursday morning on March 22.
Clark said the trip was an “eye opening” as well as “transformative.”
“Just over the course of three days, I saw students become more confident, come together to work as a team, and get so much work accomplished at the non-profits we worked with. That is why this trip filled me with pride, to see how engaged, committed, and hardworking the Parkland students were,” Clark said.
Clark said that although most of the students began the trip as strangers to one another, they were still able to come together and leave a positive impact on the local community in addition to developing “both as individuals and as a team.”
Grumish said that Parkland’s Alternative Spring Break taught her that “even doing small things as one person can make an impact when working together as a group to accomplish a huge task.”
