Date: Mar 07, 2008

Hofstra Students To Spend Their Spring Break Helping Others and Showing The Love

Students Will Volunteer in Soup Kitchens, Food Banks & After-School Programs in Philadelphia

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY –Hofstra students and administrators will spend their spring break, March 14 through March 20, 2008, volunteering in the inner city of Philadelphia, PA.  This is the third annual “Spring Break Alternative Trip” for Hofstra students, who the first year helped rebuild homes in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans and last year did volunteer work on a Navajo Indian Reservation in Bluff, Utah. The program is sponsored by Hofstra’s Office of Student Leadership and Activities.

“I hope to accomplish something meaningful by participating in this spring break,” said Junior Pascale Ngo. “I am aware that poverty is everywhere but somehow it seems distant. By going on this trip I would like to be more aware of these conditions so that I can make a difference.”

The trip is a great opportunity for students to practice humility and compassion through service to others. The students will be volunteering in soup kitchens, a nursing home, a food bank, and an after-school program. 

“I am most excited about gaining the opportunity to help those who do not have the same amount of privileges that I have been afforded in life,” said Junior Lamar Cheston. “The trip will give me a better understand of how fragile a world we actually live in.”

Students participating in the program are required to attend mandatory training sessions for all which include assigned readings, fundraising etiquette and leadership training.  Each student is required to raise $425 for the trip.

Participating students are also collecting items for Hands of Hope, an organization that delivers necessary items to men and women on the street. Some of the items include socks and travel size toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, lotion, and deodorant. To donate to this cause items can be dropped off in Room 260 of the Mack Student Center by March 11, 2008.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from about 145 undergraduate and 155 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, and a School of Law.