ACES Uses Spring Break to Serve Others

Members of the ACES club gather in Atlanta following work on a Habitat for Humanity
house over spring break.

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- Lindsey Wilson College Freshman Advisor Ritchie Hunley wants students to discover more than a career while in college. He also hopes they will discover a passion for serving others.

That's why Hunley and three other Lindsey Wilson staff members spent part of the college's recent spring break, held last week, leading 17 LWC students on a service trip in Georgia. The group worked with the Nature Conservancy's Marshall Forest Preserve near Rome, Ga., and on a Habitat for Humanity house in Atlanta.

The trip was sponsored by the LWC Achieving Collegiate Excellence and Success club. Last spring, ACES members organized a trip to Memphis, Tenn., where they delivered meals to the city's elderly shut-in residents.

"We've been trying to show the students different ways of volunteering by exposing them to different places where they can make a difference," said Hunley, who also took part in the Memphis service trip.

One of the students who made this year's trip was John Brown, a biology freshman from Albany, Ky.

"It was definitely an eye-opening experience," said Brown, who is ACES president this year. "I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about two types of service opportunities -- one was working outside with nature, the other was helping someone live a better life."

At the Marshall Forest Preserve, which is about 1.5 hours outside of Atlanta, the Lindsey Wilson students and staff members helped clear non-native vegetation from the area. Once part of Cherokee Nation lands, the Marshall Forest Preserve is now one of the few remaining old-growth forests in a geographical corridor from Pennsylvania to Alabama.

Then in Atlanta, the LWC group put the finishing touches on a Habitat for Humanity house that was built for a single mother with three children.

One of the goals of exposing students to a diversity of volunteerism is to motivate them to be involved with community service at home, Hunley said.

"We want the students to realize that there are plenty of opportunities to get involved on campus, in Columbia and in their hometowns as well," Hunley said. 

Also this semester, the LWC ACES group will do that as they raise money for the victims of this year's earthquake in Haiti, and then many of the group's members will be involved with a clean-up around Green River Lake State Park.

"One of the most important things of the trip is what it spurs us to do when we come back to campus," Brown said. "There are so many things you can bring back to campus and in your community. It's about finding what works best for you."

And Hunley said that experience has shown that students who are involved with community-service activities are more likely to be successful in the classroom.

"We especially want our freshmen who join ACES to get involved and connect with the campus and local community," he said. "That makes them more successful in the classroom because they are more interested in their college."

In addition to Brown, the students who made the ACES spring break service trip were: Leah Abuyeka of Lubbock, Texas; Danielle Albertson of Albany, Ky.; Carissa Broyles of Louisville, Ky.; Brittny Carpenter of Hustonville, Ky.; Chaz Dunn of Columbia; Elizabeth Goode of Somerset, Ky.; Albert Hayes of Oakland, Ky.; Kayla Johnson of Hawesville, Ky.; Josh LaFond of Columbia; Garrett Luttrell of Columbia; Jerena McGinnis of Monticello, Ky.; Kellie Mitchell of Monticello; Khyati Patel of Newnan, Ga.; Casey Sexton of Ferguson, Ky.; Kristen Turner of Tompkinsville, Ky.; and Antonia White of Henderson, Ky.

Scenes from the Service Trip ...