TeamVOLS

Two groups of twenty students will head to St. Louis and Morgantown, West Virginia, where they’ll tackle a variety of service projects, including volunteering at a botanical garden, working at recycling center that sells refurbished electronics to the less fortunate, performing in a talent show at a children’s hospital, and lending a hand at a food pantry, a Boys and Girls Club, the Salvation Army, and an animal shelter.

The 2012 school year marks the nineteenth year TeamVOLS has sponsored alternative spring break trips. The groups will depart from the staff parking lot across the street from the Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatics Center on Volunteer Boulevard at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 18.

Since 1993, the TeamVOLS Volunteer Center has organized alternative break trips to cities across the United States “to engage students in affordable, meaningful, and collaborative community service in an effort to increase awareness of social issues and strengthen the communities in which they serve, as well as foster a strong sense of community among trip participants and to the university as a whole.”

Increased student interest resulted in TeamVOLS getting three times as many applications as it could handle this year. The organization is already working on plans for next year, planning even more ways students can serve during both fall and spring breaks.

College of Nursing

Clinical Assistant Professor Karen Lasater will lead twenty-four students and four faculty members from the College of Nursing as they travel to Costa Rica for the college’s annual international health care trip.

The group departed this morning from McGhee Tyson Airport.

In Costa Rica, students will attend a one-day seminar presented by a local physician regarding topics such as tropical medicine, local dietary habits, local customs, and a review of Spanish for health care workers. Students will then work six to eight hours a day providing nursing care in medical clinics, working in community health centers and a long-term care facility for terminally ill children, and visiting patients at home.

The students will provide free services and medications to adults and children experiencing commonly occurring acute and chronic illnesses.

This service-learning and immersion experience engages students in meaningful activities that address human and community needs through structured opportunities designed to promote student learning and development. These experiences provide students with the opportunity to develop cultural competency and a global perspective and enhance their understanding of nursing concepts.

College of Law

This marks the first year that the College of Law has organized alternative spring break programs. In all, thirty-two students will participate in the various projects.

One group of students will go to Memphis to work with the Community Legal Center’s Immigrant Justice Program. They will help domestic violence victims in need of renewed visas. UT students teamed up with law students from Old Miss and the University of Memphis to offer this three-week program, with each university working during its spring break.

Another group will spend two days in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, conducting a “Wills for Warriors” program. Students will help current military personnel get their will, estate planning, and power of attorney in order.

The group heading to Fort Campbell will depart from the College of Law building at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, March 18, and will return Wednesday.

The group heading to Memphis will meet at the College of Law building at 6:15 a.m. Monday, March 19, and will return Friday.

Locally, students will be doing legal research and other volunteer work for Legal Aid of East Tennessee and CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a children’s advocacy organization in Knoxville.

Tyson House

Thirty-one students from Tyson House—the campus’s Episcopal/Lutheran campus ministry—will be volunteering in Washington, DC, at the nation’s largest homeless shelter, the Community for Creative Non-violence.

The trip has been organized entirely by students, from raising money for the trip to finding host families in the DC area. Students also have organized other activities for the group, including a visit to the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations, a tour of the Holocaust Museum, and a trip to the offices of Bread for the World, an organization that looks at how political action can help those living in extreme poverty.

Students will meet at Tyson House at 9:00 a.m. Saturday, March 17. They will then be shuttled to the Knoxville Transit Center downtown to take the Megabus to Washington. The bus departs at 11:00 a.m.

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C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)

Stephanie Dixon (865-974-2225, sdixon7@utk.edu)

Be sure that you:

• Travel with a reputable travel agency. Know what kind of transportation, housing and food and beverages are included in your travel package.
• Tell your friends and relatives where you will be vacationing, when you will depart and when you expect to return.
• Stay aware of your surroundings and remain in groups.
• Don’t carry all of your credit or bank cards in your wallet or purse. Carry the minimum amount of cash that you will need, including a small amount for backup. Traveler’s checks can be a good option when on vacation. If you have extra cash, leave it in your hotel room, hidden from sight.
• Don’t resist if you are robbed — give up any money, jewelry or other valuables and call 911 (or another appropriate emergency number) immediately.
• Don’t let anyone into your hotel room unless you trust them. Your personal and property safety is significantly compromised by allowing strangers or untrusted persons into your room.
• Limit alcohol intake. Decision making skills are compromised under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. The legal drinking age in the US is 21 years. If traveling to a foreign country, check the local legal drinking age and other applicable laws.

The University of Tennessee also encourage you to take necessary precautions while traveling to avoid picking up bed bugs.

• Check beds by examining the bed sheets and upper and lower seams of the mattress and box spring, especially along the head of the bed. Check behind the headboard.
• Elevate suitcases off the floor on a luggage stand, table top or other hard surface and bring large plastic trash bags in which to place your luggage.

Bedbug bites leave small white to red welts, and itch intensely. If you are exposed:

• Contain all items suspected of carrying bedbugs in plastic bags until they can be laundered.
• Upon returning home, transfer all washable clothing directly into the washer and/or dryer. Place clothing and bedding in a dryer on a high temperature setting for 30 minutes.
• Collect all plastic bags that contained the suspect laundry into a clean garbage bag and discard.
• Your suitcase can either be treated or discarded.

For those leaving vehicles on campus over spring break, make certain that no valuable property is left in plain view.

Have a great and safe spring break!

Forty-eight UT Knoxville students will head out Saturday morning, March 6, for the TeamVOLS annual Alternative Spring Break.

Students will gather at 7 a.m. in staff parking lot 30, located behind the Communications and University Extension Building, next to Andy Holt Tower. Vans will depart at 8 a.m. and will take teams of students, graduate assistants and staff members to their Alternative Spring Break locations: New Orleans and Charleston, S.C. The students will return on Thursday, March 11.

Students bound for New Orleans will help paint school classrooms in the city’s 9th Ward and spend time reading to students and repairing playgrounds. They will help landscape and clean up New Orleans’ City Park, which sustained $43 million in damage from Hurricane Katrina. Students also will lend a hand at the East Jefferson YMCA, Habitat for Humanity of New Orleans and Second Harvest Food Bank, performing clean up, office work, construction and restocking duties. While volunteering with Catholic Charities, the students will lead activities for senior citizens and mentally disabled individuals, as well as assisting in elementary classrooms.

In Charleston, students will assist in cleaning up historic sites such as Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. They will volunteer with the local Low Country Foodbank organization, and will spend time at the YMCA and the Ronald McDonald House, performing office work, cleaning and making repairs.

TeamVOLS isn’t the only organization on campus involved in outreach projects over spring break. Here’s a look at some of the other spring break service trips that are planned:

College of Nursing

Thirteen students and two faculty members from the College of Nursing are traveling to Peru as part of an international health care mission to provide primary care to some of Lima’s poorest residents. Under the leadership of Clinical Assistant Professor Karen Lasater, the trip will involve community assessments and home visits where the students and instructors will educate people on nutrition and dietary needs, prenatal care, proper sanitation, safe food and water storage practices and sanitary living conditions. They also will conduct physical exams.

The Cross

The Cross organization is planning to take 120 students to Moultrie, Ga., to work with a variety of social service organizations, including The Boys and Girls Club, and help area residents with housing needs.

The Cross is a nondenominational campus ministry that is not exclusive but is focused on reaching the Greek community.

“We will work with repairing roofs, as well as building handicap ramps,” said Owen Ragland, executive director of The Cross. This is the 11th year that The Cross has taken a trip during fall and/or spring break. “Students will have the opportunity to grow spiritual as well as make a difference in someone’s life.”

Baptist Collegiate Ministry

The Baptist Collegiate Ministry has teamed up with Calvary Baptist Church to send 120 UT students to New York City to perform “random acts of kindness.” Some of the scheduled service work includes cleaning up a cemetery, working with a homeless shelter, teaching English to Asians and working with East African children.

Fellowship Free Evangelical Church

Twenty UT students from the Fellowship Free Evangelical Church are heading to Tijuana, Mexico, where they will work with children in an orphanage, teaching them English and proper hygiene practices. The UT students also will help with construction projects at the orphanage.

Christian Student Center

The Christian Student Center will be taking its annual spring break mission trip to Jacksonville, Texas, where 16 UT students will work with Elijah’s Retreat. The 50-acre retreat is a place for families with autistic children to vacation and relax. The nonprofit retreat has six cabins for families, a recreation center, a playground, a small water park and several farm animals. The UT students will spend the week building additional cabins and helping around the camp.

Tyson House Episcopal-Lutheran Campus Ministry

Ten students from Tyson House Episcopal-Lutheran Campus Ministry will travel to the Atlanta area with Vicar John Tirro to visit and learn from three service-oriented religious communities.

“At each site, we anticipate that we’ll join in and help out, but also that we’ll build relationships, receive what the community has to offer, and learn to grow more fully into our own identity as a prayer-centered, service-oriented community at the University of Tennessee,” Tirro said.

The group will meet with the monks at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Ga.

They’ll also visit Mercy Community Church in Atlanta.

“This ministry is mostly made up of people living on the street, and they intentionally blur the lines of who is serving and who is being served,” Tirro said. “I hope we will learn here about ministry with, by and for people living without homes.”

The group also will visit Church of the Holy Comforter in Atlanta, Ga., an Episcopal church where about 60 percent of the members are living with mental illness.

“We’ll be staying at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, which has a strong emphasis on social justice,” Tirro said. “If the temperature drops below 29 degrees, we’ll be sleeping on the floor in the sanctuary, as this winter they began giving their beds to homeless people on cold nights.”

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C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)
Jamil Price (865-974-9673, jprice32@tennessee.edu)