SEEDS: Students for Education, Empowerment, & Direct Service
Alternative Fall and Spring Break
SEEDS often sponsors a longer trip during spring and fall breaks, to let students get more in-depth experiences in their leisure time. In the past, students have volunteered on a central Oregon Native American Reservation and on the Oregon Coast. In spring 2009, students went to New Orleans to help with disaster recovery and reconstruction. See photos of their experience here.
Interested in planning and coordinating a trip? Contact us!
SEEDS Alternative Spring Break Trip 2010: New Orleans
Volunteers on this trip will again work with Operation Nehemiah, a community-based organization in the Gulf Coast region. This trip will combine service, learning, and fun. 10 Reed students will be selected to participate. The trip will include at 4-8 pre-trip meetings, at least 5 days of service in the Gulf Coast, and at least one tour and/or cultural event in the region. The trip will involve physical labor as a team as well a focus on understanding the deeper social issues involved in the disaster and the recovery. The cost includes airfare, room and board, tour costs, and transportation in the region. Financial assistance is available for a limited number of students. The group will be responsible for fund raising on campus to help with the costs and SEEDS will offer ideas and support to help the group fundraise. If you think you are up for the challenge, we hope you’ll apply.Information Sessions:
Tuesday, Nov. 3 from 4-5pm in Eliot 103 and
Tuesday, Nov. 10th from 12-1pm in GCC-CD
Download an application, including cost information, or email SEEDS with questions. Applications are due on November 16, 2009.
SEEDS Alternative Fall Break Trip 2009
What are you doing with your Fall Break? Going to be around Portland? Experience your community through a new lens.
SEEDS is coordinating 4 unique opportunities to get involved in the community as an Alternative Fall Break. Since it is break and we have some extra time, we've included 2 trips that are strictly opportunities to learn more about social issues and don't involve direct service. Join your fellow Reedies in a little Portland Exploration, service to the community, learning and fun. As always, all the trips have a hearty free lunch or snacks and will get you back to campus in time for any evening activities.
1. Saturday, October 17th, 8 am to 4 pm: Farm worker Housing Tour
Interested in learning about the life and work of Latino farm workers near Portland? Sign up for a SEEDS fall break trip to visit the Farm worker Housing Development Corporation in Woodburn, Oregon. The FHDC is hosting a tour of farm worker labor camps around Woodburn, including a light breakfast and a debriefing session facilitated by FHDC staff. The tour lasts from 9am to 12pm on Saturday, October 17th. Vans will leave Reed at 8am and return by 4 pm after a stop for lunch and a tour of the farm worker radio station, KPCN. There are limited spots on this trip - please RSVP to Jackson Smith.
The mission statement of the FHDC: Recognizing the vital contribution of farmworkers to our economy, the mission of FHDC is to develop farmworker leadership for stronger and more secure families and communities through affordable housing, social services, education, and economic development. Visit the FHDC website for some facts about farmworkers in Oregon:
2. Wednesday, October 21 from 12 to 4:30 pm, Zenger Farm
Come experience fall at this urban educational farm! If the timing is right, we'll be harvesting our winter squash field and other fun fall tasks. Did you know that Bon Appetit serves produce from Zenger in commons? As always, we'll start the trip with a hearty lunch. To sign-up email Sam Biddle. Visit the Zenger Farm website to learn more about their work.
3. Thursday, October 22 from 10 am to 5 pm, The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry: OMSI
Like science? Want to help get kids excited about science? We'll spend a few hours helping run the exhibits in Portland's science museum and then we'll spend the rest of the afternoon getting to explore the museum. As always, a hearty lunch in included. To sign-up email trip leader Kelsey Lucas.
4. Friday, October 23rd, 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.: Visit the Mercy Corps Action Center to End World Hunger
Join your fellow Reedies to learn more about this international aid and development group headquartered here in Portland, their efforts to end world hunger and how you can be part of the change! We'll leave Reed at 1 pm and be back by 4:30 at the latest. Email Fawn to sign-up.
From the Action Center website:
"Each night, almost one billion people around the world go to bed
hungry. Yet hunger itself is a symptom of wider problems faced by
communities in every country.
The Action Center to End World Hunger uses hunger as an organizing
symbol of poverty, helping to explain and illustrate the challenges that
lay behind it, such as poor agricultural practices, inefficient markets,
weak health and education services, environmental degradation, conflict,
and lack of access to clean water. By identifying and highlighting these
underlying issues, the Action Center seeks to generate the public will
necessary to end hunger in our lifetimes.
The Center is a cornerstone of Mercy Corps' Global Engagement
Initiative, which seeks to radically alter the way people think about
the world and their role within it. With almost 30 years of experience
working in the world's toughest places, Mercy Corps has come to realize
that without a well-informed, mobilized constituency in the developed
world, there is a fundamental limit to the success we will have in
pursuing our mission of alleviating suffering, poverty and oppression.
The solutions to the most complex global challenges require partnership
between the people and governments of the world's economically powerful
nations, as well as those of the countries where these challenges are
most deeply felt
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and
instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against
nearly impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided more than
$1.5 billion in assistance to people in 106 nations. Supported by
headquarters in North America and Europe, the agency's global programs
employ 3,500 staff worldwide and reach more than 16.4 million people in
more than 35 countries. Over the past five years, more than 89 percent
of the agency's resources have been allocated directly to programs that
help people in need. For more information, visit www.mercycorps.org."
Space is limited for all these service opportunities---sign-up by Friday, October 16. You are more than welcome to sign-up for more than one trip as long as space is available. Questions? Email SEEDS.
Past Trips: 2006 Alternative Fall Break
Reedies went to New Orleans! In October of 2006, SEEDS coordinated a service trip with a group 12 Reedies who gutted houses, cooked, cleaned, delivered food and generally worked extremely hard for one week on Katrina recovery in the New Orleans Gulf Region with the Common Ground Collective, inspired in part by the call of Heidi Reich '05. To learn more, you can see photos from the SEEDS NOLA service trip or download journal entry reflections written on the trip home by participants.