Ivy Tech student volunteers travel to Antigua for Spring Break

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 6, 2012

Ivy Tech student volunteers travel to Antigua for Spring Break

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

“The Alternative Spring Break initiative of Ivy Tech-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 Ivy Tech 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. Ivy Tech 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 Ivy Tech-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 Ivy Tech’s Alternative Spring Break in Antigua, Guatemala will be on display in the Flashlight Gallery of the Ivy Tech 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. 

Ivy Tech Community College (www.ivytech.edu) 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. Ivy Tech 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.