UT’s Knoxville and agricultural campuses and the Fort Sanders neighborhood will get a spa treatment from the Campus Beautification Committee, Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Team VOLS, Rec Sports, and the Office of Sustainability.

These groups and a small army of volunteers will canvass the area collecting trash and recyclables.

Volunteers for the Fort Sanders cleanup will rally on the corner of Cumberland and Seventeenth avenues at 1:00 p.m. to pick up supplies.

Volunteers for the Knoxville and agricultural campus cleanups will rally outside the Humanities Plaza at 1:00 p.m. to pick up supplies.

The first twenty-five volunteers to arrive at each group’s rendezvous point will receive a reusable Make Orange Green water bottle.

Following the cleanups, all participants are invited back to the Humanities Plaza at 2:00 p.m. to enjoy complimentary food and drinks.

Now in its sixth year on campus, Earth Month promotes environmental awareness, conservation, and sustainable practices to the campus community.

For more information on the cleanup efforts, contact campus.utk@gmail.com.For a recap of UT’s Earth Month festivities, visit www.utk.edu/go/o4. To learn more about Office of Sustainability initiatives, visit environment.utk.edu.

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C O N T A C T :

Courtney Washburn (865-974-7780, cjwash@utk.edu)

Gordie Bennett (865-974-7780, gbennet5@utk.edu)

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)

The two caravans left campus at 7:45 and 8 a.m. today. The students will return Sunday afternoon.

Each team is made up of 21 students, two student team leaders, one staff member and one graduate assistant. In Danville, students will volunteer at the Humane Society and work at a food pantry, the local YMCA, a recycling center, and the church where they will stay.

The group going to Nashville will volunteer at the Second Harvest Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Nashville CARES, Southeast Nashville Recovery and the Nashville Pencil Foundation.

TeamVOLS, which stands for Volunteer Outreach for Leadership and Service, is the Volunteer Center on the UT Knoxville campus. Founded in 1993, it serves as a foundation from which students can gain valuable community service experience and leadership opportunities. The largest project undertaken by TeamVOLS is the alternative break program, which supports trips during both the fall and spring breaks. The first alternative break took place in the spring of 1993, when a group of students and administrators traveled to the Miami area to lend a hand in the relief efforts following Hurricane Andrew. Since that trip, other alternative fall and spring breaks have seen TeamVOLS members traveling to San Antonio; East Hardin, Ill.; Stamford, Conn.; New Orleans and 46 other destinations.

TeamVOLS aren’t the only Volunteers volunteering during fall break. The Cross-Greek Ministry, an on-campus ministry geared towards students in fraternities and sororities, is taking approximately 75 students to Pineville, Ky., to work on various construction projects to better the community. Students will build wheelchair ramps, renovate a community baseball field and repair roofs.

The Cross-Greek Ministry students left at 8:30 a.m. today and will return at 3 p.m. Sunday.

This is the fourth year Cross-Greek Ministry has traveled to Pineville for fall break. The Pineville community was very dependent on the coal mining industry, and now a great percentage of the population fall well below the poverty line.

Faculty and students from the College of Architecture and Design and the College of Engineering left yesterday to travel to Haiti during fall break to begin a months-long design-and-rebuild project in Fond-des-Blancs, a town 70 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. Read more about their trip here: http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2010/10/05/fall-break-haiti-trip/.

CONTACT:

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

TeamVOLS is coordinating with Graceworks Ministries, Inc. to distribute items to those in need. Graceworks Ministries is working with the American Red Cross in Williamson County.

For more information, contact TeamVOLS at 974-8481 or teamvols@utk.edu.

TeamVOLS serves as UT Knoxville’s volunteer center, aiming to provide students with active community service and outreach opportunities in order to become proactive participants in their communities. Along with alternative spring and fall break trips, TeamVOLS coordinates the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, outreach with community organizations and many more service opportunities. To learn about TeamVOLS programs, visit http://teamvols.utk.edu/programs.php.

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)