The MC students pictured around the table went on the Alternative Spring Break trip to Bridgeport, Conn.

The combined forces of Monmouth College and SUNY-Geneseo students in Kentucky.

An example of some of the garbage they encountered.

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Two groups of Monmouth College students got away from 8 o’clock classes and long hours at the library during Spring Break, but that doesn’t mean they shied away from hard work.

Kelli Wefenstett was one of 18 students who traveled to Bridgeport, Conn., along with L.C. Coghill, the college’s assistant director of leadership.

A lot of the students were shocked and surprised,” said Wefenstette, a junior from Cuba, Ill. “They had never seen an inner-city like that before. But it was exciting to be able to work with people so closely and see how our work directly affected them.”

While Wefenstette’s team was far from the stereotypical “beach” scene associated with Spring Break, another MC student group actually spent a week on the beach. But the work that senior Dani Briceno of Miami, Fla., and 15 others did was a far cry from sunbathing and body surfing.

The group, which was led by faculty member Sam-Sang Jo and included predominantly international students, traveled to northern Kentucky, where they participated in an Ohio River cleanup program run by Living Lands and Waters. The organization’s founder, Chad Pregracke, has been involved in extensive work on the Mississippi River and has given two public lectures at Monmouth College.

“We did not just go the beach to enjoy ourselves,” said Briceno. “We worked hard.”

The group’s primary tasks were to collect and sort garbage on the river’s shores. Neil Coleman, a freshman from Galesburg, said there were 20-foot-high stacks of river garbage on the organization’s barges.

“There were ridiculous types of trash,” he added, listing a water heater, refrigerators, televisions and a Wal-Mart shopping cart among the items he saw. “One day, we collected enough trash to fill a barge, which made us pretty satisfied. They told us to look back at the area after we finished, and the difference we made was pretty clear.”

The group also saw lots of tires, many of which were partially buried in the dirt and needed to be dug out before they could be loaded onto the barges. Tires were under their own classification of types of garbage, along with items made of glass, metal and paper.

The Monmouth group, which worked closely with students from SUNY-Geneseo, got a late start on fundraising for the trip, so Living Lands and Waters helped them by securing a van to travel to Kentucky and a place to stay once they arrived. Some meals were also provided.

“He’s a very good guy,” said Arjun Subedi, a freshman from Nepal, of Pegracke. “He spoke to us on Friday, and he’s an inspiration, the way he has given his time and his life for society. When I finished the week, I felt that I did something good. It was very good for me.”

Next year, the students hope to start fundraising earlier, which they hope will allow for even more students to go.

The trip to Bridgeport was the latest stop for Monmouth’s Alternative Spring Break program, now in its 12th year. Perhaps best known as the home of P.T. Barnum and the Frisbie Pie Co., which inspired the Frisbee, Bridgeport was once a thriving industrial town with more than 500 factories. Beginning in the 1970s, however, unemployment and crime soared as industries shut down, leaving many areas of the city abandoned.

“Many of the buildings in downtown Bridgeport were boarded up,” said Wefenstette. “It seemed like there were only one or two open businesses per block. There were also lots of homeless people. In outer Bridgeport, there were lots of huge mansions where the governor and city officials lived. I’ve never seen mansions so big in my life. It was a complete contradiction to inner-city Bridgeport.”

Upon their arrival in the city of 150,000, the MC students prepared dinner and served meals at the Bridgeport Rescue Mission. As they would do at some of their other stops, they also cleaned the facility and helped with organizational tasks.

The students also worked at the Connecticut Area Food Bank and the Cardinal Sheehan Center, which is where they stayed for the week. One day, they helped children at nearby Columbus Elementary School with their homework, then brought eight kids back with them to the center for more individualized after-school attention.

They also worked on a Habitat for Humanity home and enjoyed a “fun day” in New York City, which was highlighted by seeing a performance of “Rent” on Broadway.

Wefenstette concluded, “We got to talk to a lot of the (shelter) residents and learned that we’re all much more alike than we would have thought.”

MC Alternative Spring Break Webpage

Released by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330