THE ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK PROJECT COMES TO NEWARK!
RALLY SATURDAY TO RECEIVE HOWARD STUDENT VOLUNTEERS!
On Saturday, March 14th, a welcome rally will be held on Newark City Hall steps to receive the 50 students from Howard University’s Alternative Spring Break project who will be doing volunteer work at select social service settings in the city over the course of the following week!
The rally will take place at 5pm. Newark City Hall is located at 920 Broad Street, Newark.
This local effort is being brought together by the Howard University Alumni Committee of NJ, the Greater Newark Conservancy, Metropolitan Baptist Church, the Newark AntiViolence Coalition and others.
Alternative Spring Break was launched in 1994 to provide Howard University students with a meaningful, constructive “alternative” to the indulgence-centered spring break activities that have dominated the commercial media in recent years. The aftermath of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans inspired the meaningful growth of the project, which has since appeared in several cities including New Orleans, Memphis, Detroit, Washington, DC, St. Louis, Chicago and Baltimore. It has also served abroad in Haiti.
It has been spotlighted on BET, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit Free Press and The Hilltop. The 2006 New Orleans participants, some 250 volunteers, were recognized on ABC’s World News Tonight with the highly coveted ‘People of the Week’ Award. Last year, on the strength and merits of the project, Howard University was named to President Obama’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest distinction that a higher education institution can receive for community service.
The project coming to Newark dovetails with a surging community volunteerism spirit that has grown out of the city’s recent AntiViolence Movement efforts.
“Think of it as President Kennedy’s ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’ being revisited by a new generation,” said Keesha Eure, chair of the Newark AntiViolence Coalition, who is a key coordinator of the project.
“It is a much-needed example of what great things young people can do and has the potential to really inspire young people in our city to do some incredibly positive things on their own,” she finished emphatically.
Mayor Ras Baraka and his late father, the pioneering revolutionary artist Amiri Baraka, are both Howard University alumni.
The students will be doing volunteer projects at various sites throughout the city from Monday, March 16th to March 21st concluding with a community engagement walk, another civic participation initiative by Mayor Baraka.
For more information, please contact Ms. Eure at 973 885 8896…
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