This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
The Alternative School Break (ASB) Club will send students to Chicago and San Francisco for one week in January to work with local organizations that aid the cities’ needy and another group will join Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders in Honduras.
One team will collaborate with PEACE, a grass roots community action organization based in Chicago that fights child hunger. During the day, the students will conduct well-being checks on elderly and clean the community center. They will also provide two meals a day and serve as mentors to children in after-school programs.
Team members will include Marquis Scholar Sarah Belliotti ’09 (Buffalo, N.Y.), biology major Eugene Netupsky ’08 (New York, N.Y.), Danielle Bero ’07 (Astoria, N.Y.), who created a major that combines creative mediums and social justice, biochemistry major Emily Brown’08 (Bethlehem, Pa.), biology major Jillian Carinci ’08 (Wilmington, Del.), Amber Zuber, coordinator of the Landis Community Outreach Center, and Bonnie Winfield, director of the Landis Center.
According to San Francisco Food Bank, nearly 150,000 people in the city live with the threat of hunger. A second group of students will work with the corporation to sort meals and deliver food to the homeless on the streets or needy people in housing projects. In addition, they will volunteer with the Welcome Ministry, which “seeks to provide a faithful response” to homelessness by providing hospitality, food, and referrals for housing, health care, and drug and alcohol treatment.
Team members will include economics & business major Steve Caruso ’06 (Middletown, N.J.), biology major Liz Brady ’07 (Freehold, N.J.), anthropology and sociology majorRasheim Donaldson ’06 (New York, N.Y.), Trustee Scholar Ian McBride ’09 (Rye, N.Y.), mechanical engineering major Jimmy Meehan’07 (Barrington, R.I.), international economics & commerce major Jamie Papageorgiou’06 (Tenafly, N.J.), Nancy Parker ’09 (Mystic, Conn.), Jen Spiciarich ’08 (Syosset, N.Y.), and Stephanie Cote, Landis Community Outreach Center coordinator and ASB adviser.
As part of an ongoing project to bring clean water to communities in Honduras, another group of ASB volunteers will join Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Boarders for two weeks in Lagunitas to build rainwater washbasins for women in the village.
Team members will include Jennifer Kelleman ’08 (Ashland, Ky.), Michael Luciano ’09 (Lincroft, N.J.), international economics & commerce major Arturo Osorio ’06 (Ferndale, Mich.), French major Kathleen Reddington ’08 (Jersey City, N.J.), Allison Thompson ’08 (Saddle River, N.J.), and Debbie Rhebergen’03, assistant director of Lafayette’s annual fund.
“ASB gives students the opportunity to join a year-long service program dealing
with a social issue they might not have otherwise encountered,” explains Caruso, president of the student-run organization. “For many students this may be the only chance they have over the course of the school year to participate in service.
“ASB also challenges students to become fully developed leaders,” he adds. “All of the
trips are developed, organized, and run by the students of the executive board
and members of the teams.”
Last school year’s trips included community projects in Honduras, Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida. Recently, students held a brown bag discussion on their fall break in Washington, D.C., which focused on bringing food to HIV/AIDS patients and the terminally ill.