Alternate Spring Break 2000

Community of Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio

MISSION

The Catholic* Worker Community of Cleveland provides a unique opportunity for student volunteers and other visitors to experience "community" through complete immersion. When students arrive, they are given a walking tour of the neighborhood in which they will work and spend time. Participants will also have an opportunity to reflect, debrief and interact with the local community. Community service work will vary from working in soup kitchens to assisting at the organization's shelter, and also other various projects geared towards the local community. There will also be an opportunity to spend a day doing team-building exercise on a rope course. *This site is non-denominational.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

For one week, Penn ASBers in Cleveland lived in a house affectionately called "The Storefront." Situated in the middle of a city block on Cleveland's East side, we spent the week getting to know some folks in the neighborhood and working with them to serve some immediate needs.

Each day offered ASBers an opportunity to interact with new people and engage in different activities. St. Herman's House is a transitional place for homeless men to eat, work and live. ASBers cooked meals with permanent workers and interacted with residents. Baked chicken, beef stew, lasagna, mixed veges, apples, pies and milk was not only about preparing good food, but it was truly eye-opening to share meals with people who ate in these facilities every day. Drop-in centers, such as Malichi's, needed our help serving sandwiches and coffee to homeless during the afternoon. Students sorted mountains of donated clothing and thrift goods. Organizing these goods was important to efficiently distributing them to people in need. Spanish came in handy as some ASBers went to "El Barrio," an after school program dedicated to helping Hispanic children excel in school and social settings. Playing chess with someone was one ASBer's afternoon activity.

Interacting with Spring Break students from Montana's Carroll College and the University of Virginia was an opportunity to reflect on different cultural perspectives of the work throughout the week and it was a chance for us to meet students from all over the country. Warm turkey dinner and all the fixins' awaited us one night after work at Whitman House. Penn students often cooked our own meals at Whitman house and it was a hub of activity and interaction.

Our work was more than just the physical motions of doing or serving. So much of what ASBers experienced in Cleveland was a sense of personal connection to the work that we were able to offer. By the end of the week, we knew community members and they knew us. We were able to laugh together and just comfortably be together. We felt our work was important and valued on so many levels.

Penn ASBers agreed that Spring Break in Cleveland was an experience fulfilling through its service, humbling through its humanity and gratifying through its connection to people.

ENTERTAINMENT

  • Touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  • Eating at Cleveland's Hard Rock Cafe
  • Chilling at a Live Jazz Club
  • Clubbing at the infamous FLATS
Some of people's best memories of Cleveland were spending time with community members. Each night, ASB participants had the opportunity to have coffee and donuts with people from the neighborhood. Sometimes we played cards. Sometimes we listened to stories. Every once in a while we'd go outside to smoke a cigarette. Thursday night we watched a video. "Hanging out" became some people's most memorable and satisfying time of Spring Break.

FAVORITE QUOTES

"Just Roll with it."

FINAL THOUGHTS

(Personal thought submitted by Kandice, one of the Cleveland Site Leaders.)

"My backpack got stolen last night. It's alright though. See, I was walking and walking and walking all night and around three o'clock in the morning I sat down at a bus stop bench because I was just exhausted. I put my backpack on my stomach and wrapped my arms around it. But I must have been so tired. When I woke up, the back pack was gone and I don't even remember anyone taking it.

"I had all my extra stuff in it -- toilet paper, pair of socks, razor, a pair of underwear, stuff like that. I sort of wish I still had it, but it's ok. It'll all make it's way back to me. That's the way Karma works. See, I used to have this ugly pink back pack. It was alright. It was too small for me and it had a picture of a cat on it, but it worked pretty good, so I used it. One night, this guy tried to take it from me but I fought him for it. I ended up getting a black eye, a bloody face and loosing the bag to boot. For a whole week I was so mad that I lost that bag. I worried about it all the time. I kept thinking I was missing something.

"Eventually I just quit worrying about it though. You know? Sometimes you just gotta' quit trying to make stuff happen. I figured I'd just roll with it. Well I'll be damned if not a week later I found a nice big black leather back pack. This one was ten times better than that pink one I had. This black one had all working zippers and nice pockets and I looked cool with it.

"Just think though, what if I still had that pink back pack? I never would have even been open to this black one. So, that's what will happen now that the black was is gone. There will be something good, I just have to be open to it. You know?"

The most complicated and simple notion I've ever heard is articulated in this story. I heard it while on spring break of my junior year of college while I was volunteering with ASB in Cleveland. The homeless man who told it to me calmly ate his baked chicken and potato salad while telling me about what had happened to him the night before. He had been homeless on and off since he was 15. As it turned out, Ben was 30 something, but the leather of his face and hands reveled he was worn way beyond his years. Traveling all over the country, sometimes on foot, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes illegally by train, he promised me that he had seen just about everything.

In my opinion, so much of what he articulates in this story is reflected in my thoughts about ASB. In my experience , people get the most out of Alternate Spring Break when they just roll with it. When people stop thinking they might somehow be missing a week on a cruise ship for spring break, they are open to all of the great opportunities ASB can offer. There is something truly remarkable about spending your vacation with people, in a community, open to all of the sights, sounds, sensations and experiences of a place.

If you are open to the experience, ASB can be a week that will be memorable and gratifying. And maybe, just maybe, you'll be as lucky as I was to meet somebody who can tell you a few stories about how the world works for them.

PARTICIPANTS

Kristen Douglas
Courtney King
Talia Master
Jennifer Kwon
Margaret Grillo
Adam Weissman
Melissa Mandler
Amanda Chen
Ed Hebert
Josh Maeulen

CLEVELAND 2000 SITE LEADERS

David Holtzman and Kandice Zeman

Special thanks to Kandice for her contribution to this page.


Click here to learn more about Community of Cleveland
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E-mail Alternate Spring Break at altbreak@dolphin.upenn.edu
This website is maintained by Jen Bolson.
Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome.
Last revised: March, 2002.