Lauren Snow

Helping Hand

Act of Giving Back:
Students willing to put their lives at risk for the sake of helping others


The act of service prompts Americans to assist one another and inclines them
willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of others. Its
importance has been recognized throughout the history of our country as one of the
threads that has held together the fabric of this nation and has strengthened the character
of its citizens.
Today, millions of Americans on college campuses, through religious
congregation, at local high schools schools, and in social service organizations are
participating in a wide range of volunteer activities locally. Studies have also seen an
increasingly popular form of volunteering among young people, particularly gap year
students, is to travel to communities in the developing world to work on various service
projects or participate on mission trips. International volunteering is said to give
participants valuable skills, knowledge, and the experience of a lifetime.
Elon University actively promotes service learning, community engagement and
international service opportunities to students through their Kernodle Center and through
Elon Volunteers! Last year, 2,510 students participated in service while at Elon, totaling
106,486 hours of service. Although many students actively participate in volunteer work
at Elon, 2013 graduate Alyssa Dilly, rising senior Katherine Hill, and soon to graduate
Katy Steele, stand out above the rest as three individuals who truly embody the meaning
of volunteer work and giving back to the global community.
Alyssa Dilly graduated Elon University with a bachelor of science in public health
and was extremely involved in the volunteer work Elon had to offer. Whether it was
tutoring Elon Elementary students in Spanish through Elons El Centro de Espaol, or
through her sorority Alpha Xi Delta by fundraising for and participating in events for
their philanthropy, Autism Speaks, Dilly enjoyed the wide range of service opportunities
Elon had to offer.
It wasnt until her junior year that Dilly started getting more interested in public
health so she began looking into opportunities to do a health-related mission trip abroad,
preferably in a Spanish-speaking country. In her research she discovered that Elon had its
own chapter of Global Brigades, an organization that coordinates various service trips to
countries around the world. Dilly applied for a scholarship through the Isabella Cannon
Leadership Program and received a grant to participate in a 10-day medical brigade to
Honduras in August before her senior year.
The trip was a game changer, Dilly said in an interview. The experiences I had
working in rural clinics taking vitals, shadowing doctors and working in the pharmacy
(and playing soccer with all the children) are still extremely vivid in my mind and close
to my heart.
The experience helped clarify and encourage her ultimate career aspirations and
enormously influenced her overall decision to go to India, where she has been for little
less than a year.
Dilly is currently living in Jamked, India working as an Elon Fellow at the
Comprehensive Rural Health Project. The Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP)
is a non-governmental organization that has been working among the rural poor and
marginalized in India for over 42 years. The health project brings healthcare to the
poorest of the poor, and has become an organization that empowers people to eliminate
injustices through integrated efforts in health and development. CRHP works by
mobilizing and building the capacity of communities to achieve access to comprehensive
development and freedom from stigma, poverty and disease.
She first heard of CRHP through one of Elons public health winter term classes
that goes to CRHPs campus in India to learn about community-based primary health
care. Dilly had been interested in this trip throughout her years at Elon, because the
project aligned beautifully with what her interests were in the field of public health:
global health, working with underserved populations, health promotion for disease
prevention. The course also highlighted hands-on, out of the classroom experiences to
enhance learning. Unfortunately she did not have the flexibility in her schedule to do a
winter term trip. So instead, of being involved on the winter term trip, she decided to
pursue an Elon Postgraduate Fellowship with CRHP because it had always been a
priority of hers to gain clinical hours before applying for Physician Assistant programs
for her chosen career.
A truly unique way become immersed in volunteer work, Dilly said the
experience she has had in India thus far has been incredibly eye opening. Some of the
highlights she mentioned during an interview were being in the delivery room for an
entire natural birth and being able to give that newborn baby girl her first bath, wrap her
in a sari-cloth, and give her to her grandmother, who had been sitting in the corner of the
operating room throughout the birth. Dilly enthusiastically talked about surpassing the
1,000-women-tested-mark for the HIV/AIDS research project shes been working on,
totaling 1,148 women tested. She also described her overnight experience in the village
of Padali, at the home of a Village Health Worker named Pushpa, which provided her
with a more complete understanding of village life in India.
Living at that minimalistic, basic level of comfort, even for only 24 hours, was
truly an experience, and made me even more aware of the structural barriers to health that
exist, said Dilly. I also liked being able to teach some children how to play duck, duck,
goose, and help Pushpa make chapattis for dinner.
Throughout her active volunteer work in Indias villages with CRHP, Dilly has
been able to learn the principles of community-based primary health care. She believes
the knowledge she has gained and her understandings of equity, integration,
empowerment and appropriate technology will stay with her throughout her personal and
professional life. Dilly says her volunteer work has helped her to be cognizant of
community, and the underlying detriments of health.
My perception of health needs and healthcare have completely changed, for the
better, while volunteering in India, said Dilly. I have had countless experiences that
have shaped my perception of health and humanity, and what it means to deliver care
through volunteer work.
Colleges and universities across the United States are placing a renewed emphasis
on the importance of service and community engagement. In 2010 researchers at the
University of Notre Dame performed a longitudinal study that examined the long-term
impact of college volunteering and participating in engaged forms of learning on students
adult wellbeing. The study examined 416 participants during their freshman year of
college, their senior year, and 13 years after graduation. Results of the study show that
college students who participate in volunteering and service learning have positive,
indirect effects on several forms of wellbeing during their adulthood, including personal
growth, purpose in life, environmental mastery, and life satisfaction. Specifically, the
college experiences highlighted in the study are associated with subsequent behaviors,
such as adult volunteering, attitudes and values, which in turn are positively associated
with wellbeing.
(Paragraph of facultys perception of students being involved in service trips and
what they think of the study)
Dillys experience in India may be coming to an end, but her knowledge and
passion for public health service continues to grow. She exemplifies the results of the
study and would urge anyone to take a year abroad after graduation to volunteer for
something they are truly passionate about.
My experience in India has truly been a time of self-discovery and growth, said
Dilly, and I am much more confident in who I am as a person.
Elons Postgraduate Fellowship with CRHP is only one in hundreds of ways
college students can actively get involved with the community. Another volunteer
program Elon actively promotes is through Elon Volunteers alternative break trips,
specifically their two-week service trip to Malawi, Africa this summer. On May 26
th
,
twelve students will fly out to Dullace and headed to Africa for the first time. For the
duration of their stay, theyll be volunteering with an orphanage in a small village in a
southeastern African country called Malawi, which is bordered by Mozambique, Zambia,
and Tanzania.
One of the students participating on the Malawi excursion this summer is rising
senior, Katherine Hill.
I have always had an interest in Africa and the need for service trips, said Hill
in an interview. When I heard about the service trip through Elon Volunteers, I decided
that that was my opportunity to give back.
Hill actively participates with the Elons Special Olympics and Habitat for
Humanity as well as volunteering in her hometown of Skaneateles, NY with
organizations such as the Salvation Army and at various soup kitchens. On top of her
love for volunteering, Hill is an avid traveler whose goal is to make it every country more
than once. Shes already traveled to Australia, South America, and Europe for pleasure
but is excited to go to Africa and develop an altruistic side of her travel experience.
I have traveled so many places, but I have never had the opportunity to give
back, said Hill, this is my chance.
Besides the clich to give back to the world, Hill expects this trip to be eye
opening and develop her appreciation for life. Similar to Dillys experience, Hill is
anxious to see if it will help her decide her future with long-term service trips and hopes
it will become something she would want to do for the rest of her life. In her eyes, she
sees the experience a stepping-stone to the Peace Corps or other long-term mission or
service trips.
Elon dynamically promotes its service and volunteer opportunities because
service learning has a positive effect on student personal development such as sense of
personal efficacy, personal identity, spiritual growth, and moral development. Research
studies say that applying service and service-learning to an international context holds
many of the same advantages of applying it locally, but impacts students at a deeper level
simply because the cultural differences between those serving and those being served can
be more extreme than in a local community.
Spirituality, prayer, and reflection, are other examples of how Elon students can
benefit from service trips, and are the reasons why Katy Steele is embarking on a
yearlong mission trip after her senior graduation in less than three weeks. The program
she is participating in is called the World Race, which is a journey to 11 countries in 11
months. The world race facilitates discipleship through the process of discovering into
the abundant life He promised. Through this mission trip, Katy has high hopes of
impacting the nations for the sake of Jesus.
She heard of the World Race as a sophomore through a friend Mary B, who went
on the mission trip after graduating from Elon. After Mary came back from her mission
trip, she shared her crazy experiences from getting lice to contracting dungy fever in
Nicaragua - with Katy who was blown away by her story. Although shocking, something
about it just stuck with her.
Marys story was constantly in the back of my head and I thought it would go
away, but it kept nagging at me so I knew I had to look into it, said Katy in an interview.
Katy talked about her decision to go on the trip as one of the most challenging
things shes ever contemplated over. At one point she hoped her desire would go away
because she was so fearful of what to expect. Throughout her decision process she never
talked about her interest in the mission trip with her parents. Instead, she talked to god
about it and prayed over it.
A believer once told me that you should wait to act on something until you know
what acting on is disobedience to the world, said Katy. After praying and waiting, I
knew that not participating in the World Race was acting on disobedience. My main goal
as a Christian is to obey the lord, so I applied.
She made her final decision this past January and knew it was the right thing to do
and the right path to take. Similar to Dillys experience, Katy is anxious for the
opportunity to grow her horizons and is excited to share Jesus with people in third world
countries who dont know who he is. In her eyes, the chance to be able to go around the
world and tell people that God loves them is one of the most rewarding experiences she
could ever hope for.
The mission around service and mission trips has taken hold on campuses
throughout the country. With the support of administrators, students such as Alyssa Dilly,
Katherine Hill and Katy Steele, are organizing themselves to reach out to communities
and help make them a better place to live while learning about themselves in the process.
Service is a powerful tool that gathers diverse individuals to act for a collective common
good, often pulling together people who normally may not interact with each other. In
this way, service can facilitate understanding between individuals, increase self-
awareness, and with the internalization of an entirely differently world, can be
transformational.

References

Bowman, Nicholas, Brandenberger, Jay, Lapsley, Daniel, Hill, Patrick, and Quaranto,
Jessica (2010). Serving in College, Flourishing in Adulthood: Does Community
Engagement During the College Years Predict Adult Well-Being? Applied
Psychology: Health and Well-Being 2.1: 14-34. University of Notre Dame. Web.
4 May. 2014.