Gulf Coast Rebuilding Projects Included with Annual Spring Break Service Trips

Twenty years ago, DePaul University’s “Alternative Spring Break” program was founded, giving the university’s students the opportunity to choose a more enriching experience of serving others for a week rather than partying on a beach. The trips were inspired by DePaul’s mission of service to others in the spirit of the university’s namesake patron, Vincent de Paul, the 17th-century French saint who was known as the “Apostle of Charity.”

After two decades, the event has grown, with nearly 95 DePaul students taking part this week. Approximately 80 students are participating in nine different service immersion trips sponsored by University Ministry’s Community Service Office, and another dozen students are embarking on another trip sponsored by DePaul’s Greek Life Program.

For the second straight year, two of the nine University Ministry groups will be departing March 21 for New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., to aid in the still-struggling effort to rebuild from the 2005 hurricanes that battered the Gulf Coast.

In New Orleans, students will join with Operation Helping Hands, a relief effort by Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New Orleans. During their week-long stay, the team of students will work on various rebuilding-related tasks. An estimated 92,000 homes in the city and 200,000 in the New Orleans metro area were severely damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent floods.

In Biloxi, students also will assist with a number of storm reconstruction projects. Hurricane Katrina killed 238 people in Mississippi, and an estimated 90 percent of the buildings on the Gulfport-Biloxi coastline were wiped out by Katrina’s storm surge.

In addition to the Gulf Coast trips, student groups will travel to seven other cities around the country for additional service immersion projects. Destinations include New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Montgomery, Ala., Cranks Creek, Ky., and Okolona, Miss. Participants will work on such issues as urban poverty, homelessness, civil rights, peace and justice, rural poverty and education.

“This program’s 20 years of success gives testament to how our students embrace DePaul’s Vincentian mission,” said Casey Bowles, DePaul’s service immersion trip coordinator. “What’s also gratifying is how long we have been able to maintain and grow our relationships with all of the local service organizations that we work with around the country.”

Additionally, a group of 12 DePaul fraternity and sorority members will embark on a trip to Kissimmee, Fla., to volunteer at the Give Kids the World Village, a facility that provides children with terminal and life-threatening illnesses and their families with no-cost accommodations, as well as free meals, transportation and tickets to Central Florida theme parks and attractions.

With a total enrollment of 23,149 students on two Chicago and four suburban campuses, DePaul is the largest Catholic university in the nation and the largest private, not-for-profit university in the Midwest. DePaul is an innovative and diverse university offering pragmatic educational programs that instill values, including a commitment to community service.