Saturday, October 30, 2010

We're Making Great Strides!

Hello everyone!

I just figured I would put down in words some of the excellent progress we have been making with this year's Alternative Spring Break to St. Tammany West, Louisiana! We made revealing the trip location a scavenger hunt and charged $1 per person who was interested in hunting for the location. This gave us a profit of $21 and that's wonderful! I'm just so happy with all the progress we've made in fund raising for the trip. It's absolutely phenomenal that we have had such wonderful ideas and suggestions, especially from Emily about raising enough money to be able to make a real difference. Every little bit helps and even now, only three months into the semester, we've raised significant funds for our adventure to Louisiana. Our Halloween Bake Sale was also a great success, raising some $118 for the trip! I can't explain how great it was to have put so much work into the baking of all those yummy treats the night before and to see them sold so quickly; it was such a good feeling!

On top of raising insane amounts of funds for the trip we are also having a lot of interest from the student population in going, which is really gratifying. Applications have been available in the SILD office (on the 5th floor of the College Center in room 510) since last Wednesday and we have already had a handful of applications completed and turned in, which is very good news! I am absolutely ecstatic to have a group of peers to share the excitement and plans for the trip with. I am most excited for our growth from friends and acquaintances to a big, happy, service family!

With all the fund raising and research well underway, I am really excited to get started planning retention for our group; coming up with organizations to work with so that we may better serve our local communities is going to be a great opportunity for the group to bond and to better adapt to their awesome responsibilities when we finally head to Louisiana to work with Habitat. Now that everything is well underway, I am extremely excited and optimistic about the impact this year's Alternative Spring Break is going to have on making positive change for both the New England and Southern communities.

Be STOKED,
<3 Stephen