Blast from the Past: Appalachia Volunteers plans additional trips

Published in The Heights on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2001

It is hard to imagine that anyone could be turned away from volunteering to build houses or helping communities in the Appalachian region.

But at the beginning of the fall, the coordinators of the Appalachia Volunteers program announced to a crowded room of over 500 students that they might not be able to accept every aspiring volunteer this year.

Fortunately, this is no longer a concern for the Appalachia Volunteers. Anyone who has completed the initial requirements will be able to go on an Appalachian retreat.

Appalachia Volunteers is a unique program because its members ditch the traditional spring break plans of an alcohol-soaked experience on an exotic island in order to help people and actually make a difference in others' lives.

The student volunteers spend their spring break at one of many locations helping families, individuals, and even entire communities, while at the same time bonding with their fellow students.

The program offers two different types of trips: habitat and community.

Habitat trips focus on improving the structure of a community by building houses or making repairs, while community trips focus more on community interaction.

Appalachia Volunteers has grown rapidly over the last few years.

Brian Davis, one of the head coordinators of the program and CSOM '02, admits that though "funding is always a big issue as it is entirely raised by students," a lack of transportation is what could have prevented all of the volunteers from going on the trip.

Every year, the program has used 15-passenger vans to reach its destinations.

This year, minivans were proposed that would barely hold half as many students as the larger vans.

This situation posed a problem because a student who is 21 or older would have to drive each van. The coordinators were worried that there would not be enough 21-year-olds in the program, thus limiting the number of students that could go on the trips.

Davis said that the coordinators are almost positive they "will be taking everyone that does all requirements … We want everyone to have a chance."

Though the spring break trip is the culmination of the Appalachia Volunteers program, a great amount of work happens before students pack their bags and leave to help others.

One of the main requirements for the trip is attendance at weekly meetings that started toward the beginning of the year and involve speakers, small group discussions, and sign-ups.

Potential volunteers have to sign up for activities. They either participate in a day of solicitation or a day of community service. The day of solicitation includes asking other BC students to take part in the Appalachia point drive by contributing meal points or buying raffle tickets.

Appalachia Volunteers runs a raffle program to earn funding, in which volunteers sell raffle tickets for a variety of prizes.

The prizes were collected on the solicitation days earlier this year.

Of all the activities, solicitation is probably the most interesting. Those involved go into Boston, asking stores, restaurants, and other establishments to donate a prize, such as a gift certificate, to the raffle.

Some students return with unusual donations. The coordinators said, the strangest donation they received for this year's raffle is a random figurine of a cat, standing about a foot tall.

Some of the other prizes include gift certificates good at stores, restaurants, and hair salons and gifts such as disposable cameras, T-shirts, a ring, and even two tickets to the final Patriots game.

The Appalachia Volunteers enjoy enormous popularity at Boston College.

Many students try the trip once and return year after year.

Some students decide to just participate again, while others decide they want to lead one of the trips.

Davis is one of those individuals, as he has participated in the program since freshman year and now heads into his fourth trip as one of the six main coordinators.

Becoming a trip leader involves an application process, since there are not usually enough trips to accommodate all those who want to be leaders.

To try to solve this problem, Davis said, coordinators have tried breaking the program into smaller trips to allow more students to become leaders.

Just as the coordinators want to give a chance to every student who wants to volunteer, they also want to allow as many volunteers as possible to be leaders.

The leaders get a feel of what is expected of them by leading the solicitations as well as the small group discussions in the weekly meetings.

Though the leaders for this year have not been announced, they should be chosen within the next few weeks.