KSC students enjoy the sunset, warm Florida weather, and sandy beaches
Ryan Loredo
A & E Editor
Florida, a state kissed by the sun, held no negatives for KSC students venturing to Fort Myers for Alternative Spring Break 2012. Aside from the volunteer work in the area, 13 KSC students were given access to the bounty the sunshine state had to offer only limited by the money they kept with them. Stores carrying tee shirts reading, “Spring Break 2012” hung from the stores on the street, street performers showcased their unique talents, and food from the land and sea was offered to beachgoers.
Supervisor for the ASB Ft Myers trip KSC Senior Dayna Coleman commented on the location saying, “Oh my gosh, it was so much fun! The fact that we were staying across from the beach was perfect because it just provided relaxation after a day’s work,” she said. “We could just go to the beach and hang out. There was a fun atmosphere with all of the street performers, the stores, and the restaurants all of the fun stuff. People are just walking around having a good time.”
The second supervisor for the trip, KSC Senior Mike Maher, said he chose Fort Myers for another reason. “My friend is a pretty big fan of the Red Sox as well as I am,” said Maher. “We thought it would be cool to see a Red Sox pre-season game down in Fort Myers and then we just realized how beautiful the area was else wise and how many opportunities there were for community service in the area.” KSC Junior Dan Bailey commented on his decision about going on the trip saying, “It seemed like a fun place to go, a cool experience; I wanted to meet new people.” One of the volunteers, KSC freshman Sarah McCluskey, said her favorite activity on the trip was, “Going to the beach, I love the beach.” KSC Sophomore and ASB volunteer Filip Duz commented on the location saying, “I liked the weather.”
For the whole week the average temperature stayed around eighty degrees from sunrise to sunset, a welcomed relief for KSC students just barely breaking out of winter. On the way down however, the group ran into problems with their travels. Maher said, “We actually had a car that broke down, the check engine light came on and said ‘cam shaft alignment sensor in bay one’ which is kind of scary but it turns out it was just engine coolant, we had run out of coolant. By the time we had gotten to Enterprise to switch out the vehicles the check engine light turned off.” Despite these complications the group arrived successfully late Sunday night at the Beach Baptist Church on the Island and slept in one room in the recreation center with their bags and belongings stored in smaller rooms.
Multiple activities awaited the group of thirteen students. Often times they would end up either at the beach, which was just a short walk away from where they were staying, to soak up the sun or watch the orange Floridian sunsets. Coleman commented on the sunsets saying, “I loved the sunsets, I saw the sunset every night when we were there, I would have not gotten tired of it.” The group spent the day after arriving shopping for food for the week or went to the beach. The food was chosen based upon what meals were to be selected for the week; average breakfast foods such as fruits and cereals, sandwich supplies for the afternoon volunteer work, and a special meal for the dinner. The dinners were cooked by all of the members of the group as a collective effort and the cleaning was done by those who did not cook the night’s meal.After dinner the group would spend the night in the heart of Fort Myers to check out the night life. The group checked out street performers, local ice cream shops, and walked around communing with the locals. Maher said, “My favorite part of Fort Myers was the people in the area, they were all great to us.”
As part of the allotted budget the group was given $20 per person for a group activity in which all members participated in a non-community service activity. The chosen activity was to go parasailing 300 feet above the ocean. From the chute one could witness the vast wave afflicted turquoise waters below and gaze at the coastline and surrounding areas of the island. This venture provided the group an exhilarating experience filled with fright and fun. McCluskey said her experience of parasailing was, “Terrifying.” As the week came to a close, the group left Friday afternoon for Washington DC and eventually back to KSC.
KSC Senior Jared Barnett commented on the trip as a whole, “It was awesome, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had at KSC especially cause of the experience of going down with a group of people you’ve never met before but even if there were people you would know, that was probably the best time you would ever have at Keene State.”
Ryan Loredo can be contacted at rloredo@keene-equinox.com
KSC helps Habitat for Humanity with construction and community kitchen work
Ryan Loredo
A & E Editor
Spring Break, a time of relaxation, reflection, and time to a person to do what they want. Some spend it with vacations others spend it with family or friends. For the thirteen members of the KSC Alternative Spring Break Group, the vacation meant volunteer work.
The group was led by KSC seniors Mike Maher and Dayna Coleman. Coleman said, “(ASB) was something Mike and I wanted to do with Habitat for Humanity and we knew we wanted to be with that organization because we wanted to do a building construction trip. Fort Myers was one of the places in need of volunteers and they fill up pretty fast.”
[singlepic id=939 w=320 h=240 float=right]
The group first volunteered at a community kitchen on Tuesday. The kitchen was a part of Community Cooperative Ministries Incorporated in Lee County Florida. Students were assigned various jobs including food prep, cooler washing, food serving, taking orders, and serving food to the people.
KSC Freshman Sarah McCluskey volunteered in both the kitchen and dining room as part of her service, she said, “It was really sad that there was people vacationing on the island and we were right down the street and there were these people that were in so much trouble.”
KSC Freshman Mackenzie Coutts also volunteered at the kitchen. She compared her previous experience at other community kitchens and said, “There’s a lot more people at Fort Myers and it was just completely different.”
Coleman said, “I think it was a lot of fun, we served a lot more people than we expected to. Everyone else who was volunteering there was really nice, really helpful we walked in there and really didn’t know what we were doing but they greeted us with open arms.”
For the next three days the group spent their mornings and early afternoons working on an unfinished house as part of Habitat for Humanity. The first day, Wednesday, was mostly spent on the roof nailing in the first boards to the structure. The following day, Thursday, was spent inside of the unfinished project installing ceiling rat walks, X-frames, and fortifying the internal wall frames. The last day, Friday, was spent along the outside walls installing windows and started waterproofing the outside walls.
In the end the house was not completed however group members were not disappointed in it.
The volunteers were not left on their own for the construction; several professional construction workers helped the KSC students with the housing project.
Every morning the workers gathered together with all the volunteers, said a prayer, and sent the groups to their various locations.
Nails created a thunderstorm of noise which reverberated off the wooden walls across the sun kissed neighborhood.
At the end of all the volunteer work the students said their good byes to the professionals leaving with memories and experience only earned through volunteer work.
KSC sophomore Dani Dickstein worked with Habitat for Humanity in the past and said her previous experience included, “Going to work sites with my dad.”
She went on to say, “I thought we definitely made a good impact and I was happy to see an end result. It really looked like we had made a difference.”
Maher said, “It was hard to feel the impact with doing the construction work because it was still very early in the construction stages.”
Maher had experience with doing construction work in his high school career.
Another volunteer, KSC freshman Sarah Cipot, also had experience with construction in her mission trips while in high school.
“I went to Mexico freshman and sophomore year of high school.” She went on to say, “(the work) was pretty similar I built houses on both locations.”
KSC sophomore Filip Duz also commented on the construction work, “I thought it was rewarding to be working on a house for someone less fortunate.”
He went on to say, “I liked doing the house more I thought I was doing more (work).”
KSC senior Jared Bennett commented on the volunteer work as a whole, “the volunteer work was great, It was really good for just the experience. It was all mostly a lot of small construction based work. It was worth it just for the experience.”
He went on to say his favored community work was work at the construction site because it was “Manly work (laughs) just kidding but it was more hands on. There’s a lot of different options for the retreats and the trips but construction just appealed to me, more hands on work.”
This “hands on” approach to work was also shared with KSC freshman Jess French.
She said, “I like to work with my hands a lot more, I don’t know how I feel about the homeless people, I stepped far away from my comfort zone.”
Coutts also commented on the construction work, “I liked it a lot, my hands were sore though.”
Ryan Loredo can be contacted at rloredo@keene-equinox.com