12 Days of Giving | Springfield College
12 days of giving

Make the world a better place

Twelve days to give. Seven student groups to sponsor. Countless lives to impact.

By contributing to the 12 Days of Giving, you’ll help Springfield College students do what they love: give back. Your donations will help fund each student group’s 2018 service-learning trip, allowing them to volunteer in communities across the globe.

They’re ready to make the world a better place. Are you?

Springfield College students use their spring break to make a difference in Florida as part of Habitat for Humanity

Your contributions support students on their service trips as they give back across the globe. Here's a closer look at each trip's mission.

Service Learning Trips

Community Unity
Participants will provide service within our own community of Springfield, while educating participants on ways to give back to the community. This year our focus is to become more aware of the homeless and refugee population and how we can provide aid through working with different organizations through the city of Springfield. Students will eat and live within the community of Springfield to better experience all that the city has to offer. Each day they will partner with a different agency in a different Springfield neighborhood in an effort to understand first-hand the challenges faced by the community and opportunities to have an impact on the lives of so many.


Collegiate Build
Working with Habitat for Humanity, participants will travel to Georgetown, Delaware, and spend five days working on a Collegiate Challenge build project and assist with the construction of affordable housing options for low-income families. This project is unique in that the build is completed solely by college students from around the nation. Participants will be housed within the community and will dine in fellowship with the community. At the end of the build, a family who has contributed “sweat equity” will be afforded the opportunity for home ownership – a dream of many. College students will get the chance to learn about the barriers to home ownership and how this one seemingly small change can have a ripple effect for a family, a community, and a nation.


Breaking Boundaries
This program provides participants with two sides to a world they may have never seen before. Through many different educational and hands-on experiences, we will further immerse ourselves into the communities we visit. Participants will be afforded with opportunities to challenge perspectives and participate in efforts to humanize, work with, and learn more from those affected by natural disasters. The group will partner not only with local organizations, but with our Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) campus in Houston.


Global Connections
Capitalizing on the College’s historical partnership with the YMCA, participants will focus on capacity building with the YMCA while also providing service to other underserved populations. Students will get the opportunity to bring the Springfield College mission of leadership in service to others into action while learning about a new culture. Students will stay at a local hotel in Port au Prince and get to experience the city as they work directly with the YMCA and the community they serve.


Simply Smiles
As a volunteer with Simply Smiles, our goal is to bring smiles to the children who live on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Native American Reservation and help with anything that is needed. Participants will be learning about the Native American culture and experiencing life in a nation that is part of yet separate from the United States. Participants will spend the week working on construction projects and volunteering at a summer camp. The reservation is 45 minutes away from the closest store, and, like many reservations, unemployment, poverty, mental illness, and addiction are major issues the community is grappling with.

 

Academic Service Learning Trips

Physical therapy students will travel to Haiti and Trinidad to learn about the local health care systems and work with clinicians and individuals living in those countries.

Global Health Experience Haiti
Students will work with local rehabilitation clinicians to treat pediatric and adult patients with a variety of neuromuscular and orthopedic conditions. Additionally, students will help develop community education programs to enhance the lives of individuals with disabilities in the local community. Students also will learn about sustainable global health models and learn about the local health care system from Haitian clinicians.

During this trip, students will work the orphanage that is sponsored by author Mitch Albom, who spoke on campus in October as part of the Arts & Humanities Speaker Series. The students made 50 teddy bears that they will deliver to children in the orphanage.

Global Health Experience Trinidad & Tobago
Students will participate in the second annual Fall Prevention Program hosted this year by the Stay Steady Foundation of Trinidad &Tobago. Within this program, students will perform fall screenings and provide individualized education for older adults on fall risk and fall prevention in 4 different locations across Trinidad & Tobago. In addition, students will have opportunities to interact with local geriatric healthcare professionals to learn about the healthcare system and needs specific to older adults in the different locations.

Give now

It is not always about what you're doing, but how you make people feel. From leaving each experience, I know that I may have made an impact on someone and may be working toward making our world a little more loving and just. Nicole Rigby '18, psychology and sociology major, speaking on 2017 alternative break
Nicole Rigby '18, psychology and sociology major, speaking on 2017 alternative break