Hillel at Virginia Tech's
Alternative Spring Break to Buenos Aires
March 7-15, 2009
Alternative Spring Break to Buenos Aires
March 7-15, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Students Share Their Thoughts About Why They Want to go to Argentina for an Alternative Spring Break
Mandy Tehaan
I am excited about the upcoming trip to Argentina because it will give me the opportunity to be a part of the important mission to help others. I know intellectually that community service, as a Jewish value, is important work but by going to Argentina and actually helping hands on, I will feel it and understand it in a different way. As a campus rep for TOMS shoes, I promote the company that runs their business with the motto “one for one.” For every pair of shoes bought, a pair is given to a child in need. TOMS does some of their biggest shoe drops in Argentina. To be able to go help a community where my passion for community service is already invested makes my hard work that much more meaningful. I feel that I have a blessed life and I want to be able to give back to others who may be less fortunate. It will inspire me to continue community service and support as well as motivate me to engage others with the knowledge that I will have experienced and gained.
Alex Weaver
Throughout a previous backpacking trip in Central America, several things amazed me. First, the lives these people led were simple but happy because they appreciated the people around them rather than the material things. Second, the people in Central America were so happy and overwhelmed by us fixing their homes, playing soccer and drawing with their children, cleaning up their village and appreciative of our fascination with their culture. I hope to make the same difference in South America when I visit Argentina with Hillel. After seeing the effect community service has on lesser developed areas firsthand, being able to travel to Argentina and work with children while fixing their schools, I know the long-term effect will last past my old age as generations will continue to perform the same service. After graduating next spring, I hope to join the Peace Corps and the service I will be doing in Argentina will make a huge impact on my skills working with other cultures and improving their lives.
Douglas Holt
I recently traveled to Israel through Birthright and it really changed my life. After this trip to Israel I decided to travel more, experience new things and try to better understand how to make my life more fulfilling through service to others. I feel that this trip to Argentina is a great way to accomplish this goal.
I plan on taking this experience and applying it to the direction I want to take my life post-college. A corporate job to simply earn money does not feel right for me and I hope having these new experiences will help guide me in the future.
Kelly Fineman
I see this trip to Argentina as a great opportunity to experience an entirely new and foreign culture and connect with its people, and also a way to give of myself in return. I am a Spanish minor and would love to practice the language as well as help out with any needed translation while on the trip.
Furthermore, I am excited to meet with people that have such a different life compared to mine, however still share the same religion as me. I plan to be open-minded and to immerse myself completely so that I can take as much as I can away from this experience to share with the campus community at Virginia Tech and beyond.
Lisa Lefkowitz
This year’s week long Alternative Spring Break trip I will be traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina—home of the largest Jewish community in Latin America, and will be focusing on rebuilding a local school and working directly with children affected by their economic collapse in 2001. In the wake of the economic collapse, one third of Argentina’s Jews have sunk below the poverty level. Businesses have shut down, health services have become unaffordable, and monthly bills have put many families on the verge of eviction.
This trip is going to highly impact my life. This opportunity will provide me with the skills necessary to not only help rebuild the once vibrant Jewish community in Argentina, but also to bring those skills home and help to make my community at home stronger.
Paula Sherman
Being lucky enough to go to Argentina and work with Jewish children in impoverished conditions will provide me with a life changing experience. It will not only expand my interest in Jews and their lives worldwide, but it will also focus my attention on what I can do as an individual to help individual living in these conditions. I hope to carry this awareness to the entire community and student body at Virginia Tech upon my return. After an experience such as assisting Jewish communities in Argentina I plan on taking a more active role in supportive and fundraising groups for foreign countries and areas that need aid economically and emotionally. I will also share my experience with those on campus to strike an interest within them and let them know what a rewarding opportunity it is to assist abroad in a low-income area. Going to Argentina will further give me the opportunity to interact with people I may not have had the chance to before and will give me the ability to learn how to work in a different setting that will be more emotional and more physical. These are all aspects that will assist me as I take on leadership roles and pick up new activities to participate in throughout my future stay at Virginia Tech.
Julianna Wind
Since I joined Hillel at Virginia Tech five years ago, it has provided me with many opportunities. I have visited Chicago, been to the White House, met many professionals and networked with many people that I never believed I would get the chance to meet. However, nothing pales in comparison to my experiences participating in alternative breaks with Hillel. Since joining Hillel, I have realized that community service is something I want to take part in for the rest of my life. I believe that Tzedek and the opportunity to give back to our community is very rewarding. Because of the opportunities that Hillel has given me, I have chosen to work only in non-profit organizations as they give me the opportunity to be giving back to my community. As the leader on the alternative break to Argentina, I will have the chance to continue this journey. I hope to share the connection of Judaism to Tzedek and community service so that other students will have a life changing experience as I have.
Rachel Lamanna
Going on the Alternative Spring Break trip to Argentina will greatly impact my life. My future goal is to become an Elementary school teacher. On this trip, we will be working directly with children in helping to rebuild a school. All the experience that I can get with children gives me more confidence to be a better teacher. The impact and joy in the children’s eyes is one of the best things to witness. This experience will expose me to new experiences and help me to understand various cultures. I will gain through this experience knowledge that I will be able to apply in the classroom. Being exposed to various cultures allows me to see how different children act, learn, and communicate. Thus I will be able to relate to more students and solve the many challenges that come with teaching. A program that I am hoping to enter after I graduate is Teach for America. In this program, you go to an inner-city school or an extremely rural town to teach. Most of these places are poverty-stricken and have few resources. I believe that by going to Argentina and witnessing first had a poverty-stricken environment that it will help me to deal with the students that I will see in this program. The Alternative Spring Break trip to Argentina is a life-changing experience that I cannot pass up and am tremendously excited to be able to seize this opportunity.
Rosalie Wind
Going to New Orleans on an Alternative Winter Break last year was an amazing experience. Getting to rebuild an old junkyard into a recreational facility for children and helping clean up an emergency maintenance community was a fulfilling and life-changing opportunity. We met people of New Orleans, heard their stories, and even met new people from other schools who were doing what we were doing. When we saw the damage to the Lower Ninth Ward on one of our last days in New Orleans, I decided that I would invest time into helping rebuild fallen and destructed communities. No one should ever have to go through what the people of New Orleans, or what the impoverished people of Argentina have gone through. By going to Argentina in March, I would be helping communities, children, and the being of Argentina. I would love this opportunity, and I know that by going, I would be helping many people, as well as helping myself learn more about who I am and who I want to be.
Arielle Rumore
The Hillel International Alternative Break trip to Argentina is something I have been looking forward to for a long time. I am currently a Psychology and Human Development major here at Virginia Tech, hoping to become a clinical psychologist with a specialty in children. I feel that this trip will be an amazing experience for my future and myself. We will be working on rebuilding a local Jewish day school along with working with the students. The service of being able to help this school in a time of need will be something I will keep with me forever.
In addition, it will be an education to be able to interact and understand the difference in cultures among the children. I hope to bring back a better understanding of the way people interact and the differences in children among a culture different from our own. I am currently involved in research among the daycare students at the Virginia Tech Daycare and to have first-hand experience with children from another country will help me immensely in my studies and my research.
Samantha Kurtz
As an engineering student, I am dedicated to building green and environmentally friendly homes and commercial buildings. I am a student of civil engineering, building and construction engineering with minors in leadership and green building.
This trip to Argentina will help to inform my connections between Judaism and community service. It will give me an opportunity to experience the culture of South America. I would like to take these experiences back home to be a leader in advocacy for repairing the world. I would also like to share my experiences about the culture of South America in other leadership opportunities.
I look forward to continuing projects that will be inspired through this incredible experience. I believe experiences like these are important in developing leadership and connections to community service and Judaism.
Jared Thomson
My name is Jared Thomson, and I am lucky enough to be joining eleven other students going to Argentina with Hillel at Virginia Tech. I have been talking to the student leader of the Hillel over the last few weeks about opportunities to join in the service trip and learn more about the Jewish faith. I enjoy the community that surrounds the Hillel at Virginia Tech, and I hope that I can help work together with them on this trip. I am drawn to this sort of faith that brings people together to do work for a good cause during their alternative spring break.
Kyle Murphy
I am looking forward to joining Hillel in traveling down to Argentina and volunteering my time for an alternative spring break. Last spring break, eleven others and myself traveled down to New Orleans with Hillel to volunteer and to rebuild the city one step at a time. I have been honored the award of Eagle Scout and one of the oaths behind scouting is the idea of helping the community through volunteering. So this trip is important to me because I will be able to benefit the Jewish community and in return it will give me a chance to learn about the Jewish faith and culture in Argentina.
I am excited about the upcoming trip to Argentina because it will give me the opportunity to be a part of the important mission to help others. I know intellectually that community service, as a Jewish value, is important work but by going to Argentina and actually helping hands on, I will feel it and understand it in a different way. As a campus rep for TOMS shoes, I promote the company that runs their business with the motto “one for one.” For every pair of shoes bought, a pair is given to a child in need. TOMS does some of their biggest shoe drops in Argentina. To be able to go help a community where my passion for community service is already invested makes my hard work that much more meaningful. I feel that I have a blessed life and I want to be able to give back to others who may be less fortunate. It will inspire me to continue community service and support as well as motivate me to engage others with the knowledge that I will have experienced and gained.
Alex Weaver
Throughout a previous backpacking trip in Central America, several things amazed me. First, the lives these people led were simple but happy because they appreciated the people around them rather than the material things. Second, the people in Central America were so happy and overwhelmed by us fixing their homes, playing soccer and drawing with their children, cleaning up their village and appreciative of our fascination with their culture. I hope to make the same difference in South America when I visit Argentina with Hillel. After seeing the effect community service has on lesser developed areas firsthand, being able to travel to Argentina and work with children while fixing their schools, I know the long-term effect will last past my old age as generations will continue to perform the same service. After graduating next spring, I hope to join the Peace Corps and the service I will be doing in Argentina will make a huge impact on my skills working with other cultures and improving their lives.
Douglas Holt
I recently traveled to Israel through Birthright and it really changed my life. After this trip to Israel I decided to travel more, experience new things and try to better understand how to make my life more fulfilling through service to others. I feel that this trip to Argentina is a great way to accomplish this goal.
I plan on taking this experience and applying it to the direction I want to take my life post-college. A corporate job to simply earn money does not feel right for me and I hope having these new experiences will help guide me in the future.
Kelly Fineman
I see this trip to Argentina as a great opportunity to experience an entirely new and foreign culture and connect with its people, and also a way to give of myself in return. I am a Spanish minor and would love to practice the language as well as help out with any needed translation while on the trip.
Furthermore, I am excited to meet with people that have such a different life compared to mine, however still share the same religion as me. I plan to be open-minded and to immerse myself completely so that I can take as much as I can away from this experience to share with the campus community at Virginia Tech and beyond.
Lisa Lefkowitz
This year’s week long Alternative Spring Break trip I will be traveling to Buenos Aires, Argentina—home of the largest Jewish community in Latin America, and will be focusing on rebuilding a local school and working directly with children affected by their economic collapse in 2001. In the wake of the economic collapse, one third of Argentina’s Jews have sunk below the poverty level. Businesses have shut down, health services have become unaffordable, and monthly bills have put many families on the verge of eviction.
This trip is going to highly impact my life. This opportunity will provide me with the skills necessary to not only help rebuild the once vibrant Jewish community in Argentina, but also to bring those skills home and help to make my community at home stronger.
Paula Sherman
Being lucky enough to go to Argentina and work with Jewish children in impoverished conditions will provide me with a life changing experience. It will not only expand my interest in Jews and their lives worldwide, but it will also focus my attention on what I can do as an individual to help individual living in these conditions. I hope to carry this awareness to the entire community and student body at Virginia Tech upon my return. After an experience such as assisting Jewish communities in Argentina I plan on taking a more active role in supportive and fundraising groups for foreign countries and areas that need aid economically and emotionally. I will also share my experience with those on campus to strike an interest within them and let them know what a rewarding opportunity it is to assist abroad in a low-income area. Going to Argentina will further give me the opportunity to interact with people I may not have had the chance to before and will give me the ability to learn how to work in a different setting that will be more emotional and more physical. These are all aspects that will assist me as I take on leadership roles and pick up new activities to participate in throughout my future stay at Virginia Tech.
Julianna Wind
Since I joined Hillel at Virginia Tech five years ago, it has provided me with many opportunities. I have visited Chicago, been to the White House, met many professionals and networked with many people that I never believed I would get the chance to meet. However, nothing pales in comparison to my experiences participating in alternative breaks with Hillel. Since joining Hillel, I have realized that community service is something I want to take part in for the rest of my life. I believe that Tzedek and the opportunity to give back to our community is very rewarding. Because of the opportunities that Hillel has given me, I have chosen to work only in non-profit organizations as they give me the opportunity to be giving back to my community. As the leader on the alternative break to Argentina, I will have the chance to continue this journey. I hope to share the connection of Judaism to Tzedek and community service so that other students will have a life changing experience as I have.
Rachel Lamanna
Going on the Alternative Spring Break trip to Argentina will greatly impact my life. My future goal is to become an Elementary school teacher. On this trip, we will be working directly with children in helping to rebuild a school. All the experience that I can get with children gives me more confidence to be a better teacher. The impact and joy in the children’s eyes is one of the best things to witness. This experience will expose me to new experiences and help me to understand various cultures. I will gain through this experience knowledge that I will be able to apply in the classroom. Being exposed to various cultures allows me to see how different children act, learn, and communicate. Thus I will be able to relate to more students and solve the many challenges that come with teaching. A program that I am hoping to enter after I graduate is Teach for America. In this program, you go to an inner-city school or an extremely rural town to teach. Most of these places are poverty-stricken and have few resources. I believe that by going to Argentina and witnessing first had a poverty-stricken environment that it will help me to deal with the students that I will see in this program. The Alternative Spring Break trip to Argentina is a life-changing experience that I cannot pass up and am tremendously excited to be able to seize this opportunity.
Rosalie Wind
Going to New Orleans on an Alternative Winter Break last year was an amazing experience. Getting to rebuild an old junkyard into a recreational facility for children and helping clean up an emergency maintenance community was a fulfilling and life-changing opportunity. We met people of New Orleans, heard their stories, and even met new people from other schools who were doing what we were doing. When we saw the damage to the Lower Ninth Ward on one of our last days in New Orleans, I decided that I would invest time into helping rebuild fallen and destructed communities. No one should ever have to go through what the people of New Orleans, or what the impoverished people of Argentina have gone through. By going to Argentina in March, I would be helping communities, children, and the being of Argentina. I would love this opportunity, and I know that by going, I would be helping many people, as well as helping myself learn more about who I am and who I want to be.
Arielle Rumore
The Hillel International Alternative Break trip to Argentina is something I have been looking forward to for a long time. I am currently a Psychology and Human Development major here at Virginia Tech, hoping to become a clinical psychologist with a specialty in children. I feel that this trip will be an amazing experience for my future and myself. We will be working on rebuilding a local Jewish day school along with working with the students. The service of being able to help this school in a time of need will be something I will keep with me forever.
In addition, it will be an education to be able to interact and understand the difference in cultures among the children. I hope to bring back a better understanding of the way people interact and the differences in children among a culture different from our own. I am currently involved in research among the daycare students at the Virginia Tech Daycare and to have first-hand experience with children from another country will help me immensely in my studies and my research.
Samantha Kurtz
As an engineering student, I am dedicated to building green and environmentally friendly homes and commercial buildings. I am a student of civil engineering, building and construction engineering with minors in leadership and green building.
This trip to Argentina will help to inform my connections between Judaism and community service. It will give me an opportunity to experience the culture of South America. I would like to take these experiences back home to be a leader in advocacy for repairing the world. I would also like to share my experiences about the culture of South America in other leadership opportunities.
I look forward to continuing projects that will be inspired through this incredible experience. I believe experiences like these are important in developing leadership and connections to community service and Judaism.
Jared Thomson
My name is Jared Thomson, and I am lucky enough to be joining eleven other students going to Argentina with Hillel at Virginia Tech. I have been talking to the student leader of the Hillel over the last few weeks about opportunities to join in the service trip and learn more about the Jewish faith. I enjoy the community that surrounds the Hillel at Virginia Tech, and I hope that I can help work together with them on this trip. I am drawn to this sort of faith that brings people together to do work for a good cause during their alternative spring break.
Kyle Murphy
I am looking forward to joining Hillel in traveling down to Argentina and volunteering my time for an alternative spring break. Last spring break, eleven others and myself traveled down to New Orleans with Hillel to volunteer and to rebuild the city one step at a time. I have been honored the award of Eagle Scout and one of the oaths behind scouting is the idea of helping the community through volunteering. So this trip is important to me because I will be able to benefit the Jewish community and in return it will give me a chance to learn about the Jewish faith and culture in Argentina.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Alex Weaver writes about Argentina and serving others
Throughout my backpacking trip in Central America, I was amazed by several things. First, the lives these people led were simple but happy because they appreciated the people around them rather than the material things. Second, the people in Central America were so happy and overwhelmed by us fixing their homes, playing soccer and drawing with their children, cleaning up their village and our fascination with their culture.
I hope to make the same difference in South America when I visit Argentina with Hillel. After seeing the effect community service has on lesser developed areas firsthand, being able to travel to Argentina and work with children while fixing their schools, I know the long-term effect will last past my old age as generations will continue to perform the same service. After graduating next spring, I hope to join the Peace Corp and the service I will be doing in Argentina will make a huge impact on my skills working with other cultures and improving their lives. Thus,the trip to Argentina won't just make me a better person and help me serve the Jewish community to the best of my ability, it will change the lives of these children that we are helping so that in turn they can do the same thing for others.
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