By Benjamin Strawbridge
Staff Writer
March 22, 2018
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After a week of well-deserved recovery from the grueling grind of mid-terms and lack of a social life, students and organizations alike return to the halls of UNH to share their experiences of the 2018 spring break. Activities ranged from close-to-home all the way to multi-country expeditions and everything in between.
One of the more prominent outings came from the UNH Alternative Break Challenge (ABC) program. According to the program’s WildcatLink page, the initiative seeks to provide students with alternatives to the usual spring break fare with opportunities to “travel to various locations throughout the country to work on community service projects,” with emphasis on “group community, interaction, and reflection,” all while providing participants with chances to improve their “citizenship, responsibility, leadership skills and connection to other communities.”
This year, the program took students on a cross-country journey with the goal of community service work, according to ABC president Diana Janus in a March 21st email. Specifically, ABC traveled to Athens, OH; Fairfield, AL; Pittsboro, NC and Goose Creek, SC in support of Habitat for Humanity. They also traveled to “four trail maintenance trips with locations in Dahlonega, GA; Cumberland Island, GA; Gold Head Branch State Park in FL and York River State Park in VA.”
To top it off, ABC additionally embarked on “two group trips that go to East St. Louis to work with inner-city youth at the Christian Activity Center,” per Janus.
“The goal of these trips is for UNH students to come together, provide community service by volunteering in communities outside of our own,” Janus said. “We work to bring a strong sense of volunteering to our student body.”
Janus also explained that the program was called the Alternative Break Challenge to “provide service to a community in-need of it,” in place of the typical vacation excursion, highlighting experiences such as “restoring and building homes on the actual work site with the support of construction crews,” and collaborating with the Habitat ReStore Center.
In speaking of her personal experiences with ABC, Janus said that she has been on three Habitat for Humanity trips thus far, on top of journeys to “Hattiesburg, MS; Battle Creek, MI; and this past week I was in Birmingham, AL.”
“…I have been a part of the organization for three years and this year I was a president,” Janus said. “…you get to do some amazing traveling to different cities, and you get to leave your mark and your service on a community who appreciates it more than we can ever truly understand,” adding that the experiences are “worth every penny.” Individual students went on trips as well. Junior mechanical engineering major Kevin Cole went on an international expedition to Japan, according to Cole in an email correspondence. Cole travelled to the city of Fukushima, home of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster in which plutonium-rich radioactive water leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami hit the area, according to a 2011 article from ABC News.
“The goal of the trip was to learn more about the 2011 Fukushima accident (how it happened, how it affected Japan, and what is being done to recover),” Cole said.
As part of that research, Cole attended a number of lectures focused on the incident and related topics, including nuclear energy, disaster mitigation and renewable energy at the National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College, on top of tours of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant itself. Cole’s research concluded with a presentation of a capstone project concerning Fukushima’s efforts to achieve “sustainable revitalization.” Cole also took part, along with 15 other peers, in the GREEN Program, which provides students with “the chance to learn more about sustainability in the countries that are at its forefront while experiencing their cultures,” according to the email from Cole.
When not following research on Fukushima and related topics, Cole took in Japanese culture in the form of a plum festival, snowshoeing on Mount Bandai with views of the Goshiki-numa, or colored volcanic lakes sourced from mineral deposits, and an exploration of the Aquamarine at Fukushima, “all while enjoying delicious food and traveling with amazing people,” Cole said. “I've always wanted to go to Japan since I have always enjoyed watching anime, reading manga, and playing video games from Japan,” Cole added. “Popular Japanese media has been the gateway to my interest in Japan and what more there is to it.”
Cole stressed that in his desire to “experience new things and grow from them,” Japan is “only the start…I learned so much from my classes, the activities I've done, and the wonderful, beautiful people I've had the privilege of meeting and forming meaningful connections with.”
Other students took part in similar adventures around the globe, such as senior dual biology and women studies major Chelsea Evankow, who embarked on journeys to London, England; Barcelona, Spain; and Krakow, Poland, with the goal of “visiting friends,” in London and Barcelona. Evankow traveled with a friend to Poland in order to “expand the horizon,” due to the cheap cost of travel within the European continent.
“We were back and forth between a few different areas and decided to pick Poland because there’s so much historical context in Krakow as well as outside with the concentration camps,” once controlled by Nazi Germany in World War II, Evankow said.
Meanwhile, sophomore English/Journalism major Sophia Kurzius stayed state-side as she traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit two of her sisters and their families, as well as explore the city itself. Her explorations included the city's monuments and museums such as the Smithsonian, with the latter appealing to her because of their free admission.
Not everyone traveled beyond the borders of the United States for their spring break. Sophomore sociology and justice studies major Angela Hurley met with her friends in Boston and worked at a Friendly’s restaurant in Norwood, Massachusetts with the hopes of earning money instead of “spending a lot of money on a vacation.” Meanwhile, junior political science major Christian Merheb used his spring break to help out at an imported foods market in Methuen, Massachusetts and spent his free time at an American Antiques auction near Boston, sprouting from his hobby of collecting and trading various historical antiques.
Originally published in The New Hampshire in Vol. 107, No. 21, on Mar. 22, 2018.