Some University students will trade in their swimsuits this spring break to experience a week of service and volunteering.
A group of about 30 LSU students will travel to Atlanta this spring break as part of the Alternative Spring Break program where they will volunteer at Café 458, which provides services for the homeless.
The non-residential café, which is one of four of its kind in Atlanta, hosts about 130 homeless participants at a time. According to the Café, which is owned by Samaritan House, the participants stay enrolled in the program anywhere from two weeks to six months.
The director of the Café said that visiting LSU students will serve food, cook lunch and dessert and help with the clothing deposit.
According to Monty Aghazadeh, a biology sophomore and student director of the trip, the students also will volunteer at a boys and girls club designed to help at risk children in the Atlanta area.
Although there are no sponsors for the ASB program, Aghazadeh said the group is likely to receive funding from the University’s Organizational Relief Fund. Participants must pay a $100 fee, but will be reimbursed when the funding is authorized.
Preparation for the trip began last summer. Aghazadeh and his sister Sanaz attended a leadership session last semester that featured the National Break Away Director, Dan McCabe.
Break Away is a national non-profit organization that encourages universities to start programs like ASB.
Aghazedeh chose three fellow students to join the executive board and help organize the trip — Amy Scales, Ali Pourmohammadian and Sarah Miller.
“I’m planning several ice breakers and team-builders for each meeting,” said Scales, a secondary education sophomore. “I’m also looking to get a guest speaker from the School of Social Work to come to one of the meetings.”
Aghazadeh said that students who attend ASB will see the homeless from a different perspective.
“Working with Café 458, we will interact with homeless who have started to set goals for themselves.” Aghazadeh said. “This is a way we will be able to relate to them, because we all have different goals and aspirations for ourselves. Their goals may be as simple as getting forms of identification for benefits.”
Aghazadeh said that in addition to planning future ASB trips during school holidays, the executive board would like to coordinate service projects in Baton Rouge. This would allow other schools from across the nation to travel to the city to complete service projects.
Aghazadeh has been involved in other University service organizations such as Rotaract and Reading Friends.
He said the ASB board currently is selecting participants who have been involved in community service and who express an interest in actively helping others.
“I decided it would be a fun way to spend spring break,” said Sarah Miller, a psychology sophomore member of the executive board. “I think it is a really good idea and I wanted to help it get off the ground.”