Spring break by the bus, not the beach
NDSU student organization Students Today Leaders Forever will utilize spring break as a time to help troubled communities.
Students will travel around the United States performing different service projects while traveling via bus.
Students Today Leaders Forever is a new organization at NDSU. Founding members NDSU junior Josh Reimnitz, junior Sheldon Aldridge, sophomore Erica Bjornstad and senior Courtney Smith have experienced the trip first hand.
“ We have each (the four core leaders) been on the trip before and brought it to NDSU,” Bjornstad said. “We all went with the University of Minnesota, which had four different buses taking different routes meeting up in Washington, D.C.”
Helping different communities has the potential to inspire students, as well as create a desire to spread the feeling to others.
“ Our job on the trip is to provide the experience for others,” Reimnitz said.
Plunging into an unfamiliar community to help bring positive changes has the potential to create leaders.
“ The trip is an opportunity to grow in leadership,” Smith said.
The organization was established at the University of Minnesota in 2003 as an idea to “pay it forward,’ according to Students Today Leaders forever brochure.
The “Pay It Forward Tour” is a spring break program allowing students the opportunity to see the country while stopping in Washington, D.C., and five other communities to help in various projects, according to the brochure.
“ This year, we will have 35 students from NDSU and 400 all together,” Bjornstad said.
Each school involved with the tour is in charge of organizing an event and a place to stay for each city along the way.
“ We each (the four core leaders) took a city and are responsible for lining up an event, a place for our group to stay and some type of entertainment,” Smith said.
The tour has been organized and every destination has been booked.
“ Our first stop on the tour will be Kansas City,” Smith said.
“ We will be cleaning up a school which is also a group home,” Bjornstad said. “Because we will be there on a weekend, we won’t be able to interact with many of the people who use the facility.”
Although the students won’t have an opportunity to see the reaction of the people whose lives are touched by the work, the rewards are still endless.
“ Some projects we don’t get a chance to see the results,” Reimnitz said.
“ Last year, we helped set up a book fair. We didn’t get to see the kids reading the books but we knew our work paid off because the kids who couldn’t afford the books now have them,” Bjornstad said.
“ Our most exciting stop will be New York City,” Bjornstad said.
“ We will be working with partnerships for homeless shelters painting buildings and staying at a church near Central Park,” Smith said.
The students who participate in the tour have the opportunity to embrace communities through service projects as well as view tourist attractions.
“ We’re spending a little more time in New York City just because it’s New York City,” Aldridge said.
Each stop reveals a new challenge and a new group of people.
“ We will be stopping in Annapolis (Md.) and working with handicapped people. We will be taking the ones that are physically able out bowling, then also having time to interact with those who aren’t (able) too,” Bjornstad said.
A final meeting place for the seven buses is Washington, D.C., where a final service project will embark.
“ Our final stop will be in Washington, D.C., where we will meet up with seven other buses that had been doing the same thing as us, only taking a different route,” Smith said.
“ We will be helping with an Earth conservation project (in Washington),” Bjornstad said.
Final thoughts of the whole experience can be a mix of emotions while looking back on jobs well done.
“ It’s so hard to describe it (the tour). You just don’t have words,” Aldridge said.
“ People sign up for this trip to see the cities but remember so much more and take more out of it,” Smith said. “I went on this trip and it has changed my life.”