Jess Schweitzer: Spring Break With A Purpose

Spring break.

When "spring break" is mentioned, what do you imagine?

Do you imagine thousands of college students in their bathing suits and swimming trunks partying and doing keg stands on the beach? I used to. For me, I always pictured spring break as spending endless hours on the beach and sipping margaritas by the pool. Just wild, crazy and outrageous fun. Until my first spring break as a college student...and the second. It surely wasn't keg stands on the beach or soaking up the sun all day. I stayed home, boring old Pittsburgh, mountains of snow, freezing temperatures and long work days.

Initially, I had decided that this year, my junior year, was finally going to be the year that my friends and I go to a beach for spring break. Not just any beach but Panama City, Fla., spring break capitol of America. Well that plan fell through, do you know how expensive all of that is?!

Throughout the school year, Westminster students receive close to a million e-mails. Within that one million, I began to notice the plethora of e-mails about "Spring Break With A Purpose". I was intrigued. The spring break with a purpose trip was a mission trip for about 20 students to join and do work with Habitat For Humanity in Georgetown, SC. After a brief discussion, a friend and I had decided that we would attend this trip. Little did I know that this trip would have such an incredible impact on my outlook and the way I live my life.

Early morning on March 7, we began our nearly 14 hour car ride all the way down to South Carolina. We finally arrived at our home for the week around 9:30 that evening, the Georgetown Presbyterian Youth Center. This youth center was an awesome place to stay for the week, although we slept on air mattresses with 11 girls in one room, there was a very nice kitchen, a pool table, ping pong table, a recreational gym and much more!

Our first day in South Carolina was a free day, which we spent an hour away from Georgetown at Myrtle Beach! It was a beautiful day, 65 degrees, no clouds, just sunshine. We explored the boardwalk, enjoyed the sand between our toes and ate dinner wherever we pleased (while everyone else had seafood, of course I ordered tacos!).

On our way home to rest up for our busy work week which would begin the following day, our group was completely taken by surprise when we were involved in a car accident. It's funny because one second, the 12 of us that were in the van were jamming to boy bands together and the next we were jolted forwards, sideways and the moment felt as if it were in slow motion.

Luckily, we were all okay. The man that hit us had ran a red light and t-boned our van was also okay. No one was hurt and Reverend Mohr, who was driving our van kept his cool and quickly got us all to safety. At this point, I feared how to the rest of the trip would go. Because despite the excellent day I just had, I had felt overwhelmed because of the accident. I had nothing to worry about, it took this situation for me to realize how blessed we all were and how praying really could make a difference and I can't shake the feeling that someone was looking over us that night.

Anyway, back to the happy story!

Monday began and it was our first day on the job for Habitat. Instead of building a house, like most of you probably thought I was doing the entire week, we ending up fixing up Habitat for Humanity's new ReStore (much like a Goodwill). It was an 18,000 sq. foot space that required much building and retouching. Our workdays involved carrying A LOT of lumber, painting, using power saws and drilling anything and everything. For most of the week, a few girls and I had worked to revamp the ReStore's conference room, which definitely needed our help! With the help of Angie, Kelsey, Hannah, Dan, Emily, Rachel and the supervision of the worksite's awesome leader, Chris, we managed to flip the room. We stripped the border from the walls, painted about three coats, installed a new wood floor, which we needed to take out and fix plenty of times, we built a platform and the beginning of a nice set of cabinets and shelves for the conference room.

Learning how to use power tools was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip, along with putting in a floor! I bet some of my family members are out there anxious about the thought of me using a variety of saws but I assure you all that I'm fairly decent!

Having the opportunity of working with/for such a kind-hearted and optimistic group of indiviuals was a pleasure. A learning experience. An eye-opener. Uplifting. And just an overall good time! Meeting all of the volunteers for Habitat was awesome as well. There were plenty of retired older men and women that dedicated their days to helping build with us for a great cause. Seeing smiles on the faces of those who we were helping by devoting our break to Habitat was priceless. I would volunteer for Habitat again in a heartbeat. In fact, I have even began searching for a Habitat internship for this summer!

Our workdays ended pretty early each day, which left our free time in the evenings for activities! Some of the fun things we did during our off day and the evenings included a ghost tour of Georgetown (the most haunted town on the east coast) with the most adorable tour guide, Ginger! It was a tour around the whole town which included a very cool and detailed history lesson about Georgetown.

We also visited Pawley's Island, which was a private beach that had a variety of gorgeous beach houses and docks on the inlet. Most of the group ended up playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee on the beach, which was incredible amounts of fun! Everyone was so thrilled to have one another as company and just thinking about everyone bonding that day makes my heart smile :)

On our day off, we headed south down to Charleston, SC. We took a ferry to Fort Sumter and toured the civil war fort. We then explored Charleston. The amount of beauty that this city possessed was astounding. It was a magnificent day, 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. But walking through Charleston, passing by the rooftop restaurants, the open door beachy cafés, the elegant bistros and the long streets of endless fashion stores convinced me that Charleston is my future home. It's hard for me to describe to you how much I adored that city!

After leaving Charleston, we headed on our way to explore the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, an enormous slave plantation from the 1800's. We were taken on a bus tour of the hundreds of acres, where we saw the slave huts, the marshy water and about a dozen alligators. One alligator we came across was blocking the road, we got very close! It was outrageous, a wee bit scary but nonetheless an unforgettable moment!

Then, we took a boat tour of the Ashley River, also located on the Magnolia Plantation. We enjoyed a relaxing ride on a pontoon boat and saw more alligators! After the boat tour, our group got to walk through the house on the plantation, while hearing about the history behind the plantation, the family and the stunning home itself.

Our group also had the great opportunity to try a famous Georgetown delicacy, known as Frogmore stew. What is Frogmore stew? Well, it's interesting. It's a concoction of corn, kielbasa, shrimp, celery and potatoes marinated in about three cases of beer. Weird huh? That's not even the weird part! The huge amount of the Frogmore stew is poured out right onto a long table, where everyone stands around it and eats the stew with their hands. No plates. No silverware. No shame! I didn't know that I'd like this because of my picky eating but hey, this meal was surprisingly delicious!

Ah, there is just so much more and I could go on for hours or days about how much I loved this spring break. One of the most genuinely fun and inspirational weeks of my life is now over. But I cannot wait to do it again next year! I'm beyond grateful to have had this opportunity to spend my break with the most loving, comical and compassionate folks I've ever known. I've learned to look beyond my little key hole of life and open my eyes to see the beauty in every day.

No matter what you did for your spring break, I hope you did it with the best of intentions. May I suggest that every single one of you, if given the chance, attend a Habitat spring break trip. And to all of those I met down in South Carolina or those I became friends with during the trip, I wish you all the best. Thank you all for being my inspiration and making my spring break not just a trip but an experience. ❤