Spring Break service and learning trips
Many Richmond students traveled around the country and world on service and learning trips during spring break. Students helped with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief in New Orleans, learned about the health-care system of Peru in a Richmond Quest-sponsored trip led by Rick Mayes, and, with Stephen Tallman, professor of management systems and international business, built environmentally efficient stoves and planted trees in Guatemala. Della Fenster, associate professor of mathematics, led a trip to Austria as part of the Quest International course “What Moves Us? A Biographical Excursion through the City of Vienna,” and Jeffrey Riehl, associate professor of music, led Schola Cantorum on a Quest-sponsored concert tour of Spain. Kathleen Hewett-Smith, associate professor of English, and John Marx, assistant professor of English, led a trip to Shanghai as part of the Quest International course “Global Cities: Shanghai,” and the pre-med club took a service learning trip to Costa Rica.
Rick Mayes, assistant professor of political science, led a group of students to Peru for his course “International Public Health and Human Rights in the Developing World.” They traveled with a team of doctors and nurses to Pampas Grande, a remote Andean village, to assist with a series of screenings for TB, malnutrition, maternal health issues and other basic public health needs. The students also collected more than $3,000 to donate to the children’s health center in the village. Pictured here with Peruvian children are (from l.) Rick Mayes; Jon Alpern, ’07; and Matt Hitchcock, ’07. Contacts in Peru came through Richmond students Dianna Espinoza and Ivan Jibaja who are from the country.
About 50 students on the Collegiate Disaster Relief Team performed manual labor in New Orleans, working on projects in the Ninth Ward and surrounding areas. Here, pictured with Fats Domino, classic singer, songwriter and pianist and the best-selling African-American singer of the 1950s and early 1960s who lives in the Ninth Ward, are (from l.) Jennifer Lewis, ’09; Christina Moore, ’09; Fats Domino, Erica Coleman, ’08; Corrie Mixon, ’08; and Becky Stewart, ’10.
Laura Musser, '09, (l.) and Ashley McQuillin, '09, built a stove for a family in Guatemala. The environmentally friendly stoves improve residents' health by channeling thick smoke from cooking fires out of unventilated, brick dwellings. They were among about 20 students who made the trip organized by Partners in Service, a nonprofit program founded by Richmond alumnus Ben Blevins, R' 91.