Instead of traveling to warmer, tropical places or spending days lounging on the couch, Syracuse University students will have the opportunity to give back to the local community during Spring Break.

A new program offered by the Office of Engagement Programs will put students to work for local nonprofits. Students are able to apply for the program until Feb. 11.

“A lot of students can’t afford a big vacation,” said Syeisha Byrd, the director of the Office of Engagement Programs at SU. “For those students on campus and in the Syracuse area, this is an alternative.”

Byrd worked with George Athanas, associate director of the Office of Residential Life. Athanas helps run a similar program in Washington, D.C. She also collaborated with Carrie Abbott, director of the Office of First-Year and Transfer Programs. Byrd’s program is largely inspired by Athanas’ Spring Break D.C. program.

“Syeisha and I were talking about helping students understand that hunger and homelessness isn’t just in places like our nation’s capital,” Athanas said. “It’s here around Syracuse too.”

Byrd said the aim of the program is to build sustainable relationships between nonprofits and the students, to encourage future involvement.

“My job is really to connect people in the community,” Byrd said. “Folks need the help.”

Students will be spending each day working for one of the local nonprofits that the program has partnered with. Byrd said she expects a full day to be devoted to the Rescue Mission, which is both a clothing pantry and a feeding site for Syracuse’s hungry. The other days are supposed to be split between the Boys & Girls Club, the Food Bank of Central New York, the Samaritan Center and the food-delivery charity Meals On Wheels.

Each day of work will be finished by 4 p.m., after which participants will make dinner and eat together at the Alibrandi Catholic Center on campus.

Byrd said there is plenty of work for students to do to help the local nonprofits. While working with Meals On Wheels, students will be delivering food to many people who are unable to get it themselves. They will also work at Boys & Girls Club to help kids with homework.

“A lot of times when students think of people going hungry, they think of adults,” Byrd commented. “They don’t think of kids.”

The program, which runs during the week of Spring Break 2015 from Monday, March 9 to Wednesday, March 11, with a half-day session on Thursday, March 12, is modeled closely on the Build Your First Year Experience, a pre-orientation program for first-year students that involved the same kind of immersive student work with local nonprofits.

“Build Your First Year started as a way for first-year students to make friends before everyone was busy with classes and begin community service in Syracuse,” said Ginny Yerdon, a coordinator and administrative assistant at Hendricks Chapel.

Build Your First Year Experience was started in 2004 by then Dean of Student Affairs Thomas Wolfe, Yerdon said, and at first the program was mainly involved with Habitat For Humanity. Later years eventually saw a shift to working with many other nonprofits at sites all over Syracuse’s blighted West Side.

“My favorite part of the program is seeing the impact that Syracuse University has on its neighboring areas,” said Lydia Fowler, a former participant and sophomore mechanical engineering major. “Many students stay up here on ‘the Hill’ and don’t get to see what lies around us,” Fowler said.

Published on February 11, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Thomas: tjbeckle@syr.edu