GREENEVILLE – When spring break arrives at Tusculum University, five students do not choose the beach or home to spend the week.
Tusculum Bonner leaders and staff members of the Center for Civic Advancement gather at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Left to right are Josie Norton, Janelle Zirger, Amanda Delbridge, Anthony Bennett, Isabelle Delbridge, Maggie Vickers and Amanda Lunceford.
Amanda Lunceford, right, and Janelle Zirger perform service work at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Instead, they choose to observe an alternative spring break, one that is focused on performing service work. These students are part of the Bonner Leader Program, which is focused on service is one of the more active organizations on campus.
For spring break this year, Bonner leaders Isabelle Delbridge, Amanda Lunceford, Josie Norton, Maggie Vickers and Janelle Zirger headed to Cincinnati and assisted four nonprofit organizations. Joining them were Amanda Delbridge and Anthony Bennett, the assistant director and graduate assistant, respectively, of Tusculum’s Center for Civic Advancement, which oversees the Bonner Leader Program.
Zirger said she was interested in participating so she could help people.
“The concept of giving back and sharing a helping hand with others has been something I wanted to always do, and when I joined Bonner leaders, I was able to do that in my own community,” she said. “To do this spring break trip meant reaching out and sharing our message and aid with others, and that’s exactly what I strived to do.”
The group served at four organizations and programs and performed the following work:
- Society of St. Vincent de Paul – stocked shelves, organized items and reviewed what the neighbors can have based on size and needs
- Freestore Foodbank – compiled care packages for seniors who are unable to afford groceries
- Society of St. Andrew – worked at the Findlay Market and collected and divided vendor donations
- Cincinnati Animal Care – walked dogs, gave them treats and spent additional quality time with them
The students and the CCA staff provided assistance with food initiatives at all locations except for the animal facility. Delbridge said she came away extremely impressed with the St. Vincent de Paul facility because of its reference to the people it serves as neighbors. The organization’s slogan was “Neighbors Helping Neighbors.”
“St. Vincent de Paul sought to humanize a person’s situation and provided neighbors with the best service no matter where they were in life,” Delbridge said. “They cared about the person as a whole, not just one element.”
One of the overarching ideas Delbridge hopes the students learned from the trip is that even just a few hours of service can help a lot of people.
“We had fun performing this work,” she said. “I think it made them consider things they could do at home just as easily because they were talking about it afterward. It kind of opened their eyes to different ways to help the community.”
Isabelle Delbridge gives a treat to a dog during service work at Cincinnati Animal Care.
Janelle Zirger, left, and Isabelle Delbridge, walk a dog as part of their service work at Cincinnati Animal Care.
Zirger agreed.
“I genuinely did enjoy helping others,” she said. “Whether it was with a food bank or a humane animal society, I loved being someone people could count on and trust. It brought me joy to give the same kindness to others that had been given to me before.”
The spring break trips tie in to the civic engagement and caring Christian environment components of Tusculum’s mission. The Bonners have participated in these alternative spring break trips for several years, including trips as far away as Costa Rica and as close as Asheville, North Carolina. In 2023, Bonner leaders headed to Kentucky.
Zirger said she finds civic engagement so satisfying because of the humanity of everyone who is served.
“We all have our strengths and weaknesses, our struggles and our bad days,” Zirger said. “Some people are less fortunate, or could be more fortunate but still need that kindness and support. There is no limit to civic engagement. You can be on or off Tusculum’s campus, just down the road or cities away. To be a helping hand, to be a friend or to be a neighbor, as some of our friends in Cincinnati called it, is what makes being a Bonner, and this trip, so fulfilling.”
When they were not performing service work, students were able to enjoy some leisure activities, such as visits to the Cincinnati Zoo and a splatter paint party facility.
Additional information about the Bonner leaders is available at https://site.tusculum.edu/student-affairs/clubs-organizations/bonners/. People can access further details about the CCA at https://site.tusculum.edu/student-affairs/clubs-organizations/cca/. To learn more about the university, please visit www.tusculum.edu.