Waynesburg University is hosting three service trips over Spring Break. Students, faculty and staff members will travel to New Point, N.C.; Nassau, Bahamas; and Hato Mayor del Rey, Dominican Republic.

Angelica Good, resident director of SWEP; Aaron Sielski, assistant dean of students and six students will travel to New Point, N.C., to work alongside Habitat for Humanity. During this service trip, students will work on and off construction sites.

“This consists of spending the day building the housing foundation, painting, putting up siding, etc. Really, whatever is needed at that stage of the building process is what we do,” Good wrote in an email interview. “Beyond the construction site, we typically help sort items at the organization’s thrift store, which collects profits to fund the build[s].”

Throughout this trip, as Good explained, students will have the opportunity to be involved in fellowship, meet new people, learn new skills, make an impact and grow in their spiritual faith.

“I am most looking forward to creating new memories and lending a hand in the life changing work that is being done,” Good wrote.

Aside from serving on a national scale, students will also have the opportunity to travel internationally.

Dr. Lina Hixson, associate director of the graduate and professional nursing program and associate professor of nursing; Eve Weaver, assistant professor of nursing; and 13 students will serve in Nassau, Bahamas, during Spring Break in partnership with Praying Pelicans Missions.

Specifically designed for sophomore,  junior and senior nursing majors, this trip focuses on medical service. Students will, “provide and practice nursing skills for those with limited healthcare options,” Hixson said.

Teaching healthcare, hosting a health fair at a local church, visiting an elementary school to educate children on healthcare, helping in a soup kitchen, providing hygiene products and visiting a nursing home are all on the itinerary.

Beyond helping those in need, students will learn effective communication skills and experience healthcare outside of America.

Hixson expressed her appreciation for the University for providing its students with the opportunity to expand their perspectives and have their eyes opened to a vast world that needs people who lift one another up.

The University will also send Liliane Portman, admissions counselor; Cassy Dorsch, director of the eHive and Nest; and 15 students to a small village in Hato Mayor del Rey, Dominican Republic.

Partnered with Project Grow and open to students of any major, this trip focuses on teaching business classes to the women of the community so they can become self-sufficient. 

“Last year, we worked with [community members] to go through the creative process of brainstorming and coming up with a business,” Portman said.

For this trip, the focus will be to check the progress that the community members have made. Portman said, “We will work with them to creatively come up with solutions to any problems they have run into and get their businesses up and running.”

Students make this trip unique by drawing from a multi-major demographic. The students can teach classes specific to their strengths to empower the community, while creating new, unexpected friendships according to Portman.