More than 270 Hope College students will be spending their spring break serving others.
Some 19 service and mission trips have been planned for the college's spring break, which runs Friday, March 13, through Sunday, March 22. The mix includes trips across the U.S. as well as abroad.
Some 237 of the students will be participating in multiple mission trips organized by the college's Campus Ministries Office. In addition, 14 students involved in the college's chapter of Habitat for Humanity will participate in a work project in Alabama, and another 27 students will travel with professor of kinesiology Dr. Steven Smith to Jamaica.
In East Palo Alto, Calif., students will be working with BayshoreChristianMinistries, a year-round ministries program, to help at-risk children. In the Chicago, Ill., area, students will participate in building projects and other activities of Circle Urban Ministries in Austin. Students working with Christ Community Church in Pompano Beach, Fla., will join in with the church's outreach work in a variety of settings in the community.
In Stinking Creek, Ky., students will take on chores at the Lend-A-Hand farm, interact with children and help area residents with a variety of projects. In Jackson, Miss., students will participate in building projects and other activities of Voice of Calvary Ministries.
Students heading to Newark, N.J., will work with World Impact, an inner-city ministry, to tutor children and offer some retail training to residents. New Life Fellowship and Street Life Ministries in Queens, N.Y., offer students a chance to participate in urban ministry in an ethnically diverse setting.
Two trips to New Mexico will emphasize health-care services. In Gallup, students will shadow health professionals at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services, which delivers medical and behavioral services to a rural, culturally diverse population. In Mescalaro, through the Mescalaro Reformed Church, students will work with health care providers on an Apache Native American reservation.
With Service Over Self in Memphis, Tenn., students will provide improvement assistance to homeowners in the inner-city community.
Hope students will travel abroad to seven sites through the Campus Ministries program this year.
Young Life leaders from Hope will go to the Dominican Republic, to lend a hand with work projects at a Young Life camp, play with children, and lead activities and worship with young adults involved in Young Life. Two groups will travel to Guatemala: one to work with Worldwide Christian Schools, to help construct a new high school building, and another focused on social work. Students going to Montego Bay, Jamaica, will work on construction projects in the village of the Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf.
In Miguel Aleman, Mexico, students will work with Eagle College, a Christian elementary school. Students headed to Tijuana, Mexico, will team up with La Rocca, a program designed to help the city's poor and disadvantaged. A trip to Nicaragua will allow pre-medical and nursing students a chance to help by making visits to remote villages and public schools to help meet a variety of hygiene and medical needs.
The students involved in Habitat for Humanity will engage in a work project in Mobile, Ala. They will be working in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity's International Collegiate Challenge program on a home that is being sponsored by Mobile County Habitat for Humanity.
The group of students with Smith will be working on the school campus of the Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Smith has led a group of students to the site during spring break for several years.