Contagious goodness
October 31, 2011 1 Comment
Whenever we hear from students about their experiences on Alternative Spring Break trips, Studies Abroad, community projects in
Cat Elsby and a few Honduran friends
Harrisonburg or on the other side of the world, there’s a nearly universal chorus. It goes something like this: “I got more than I gave.” These experiences, increasingly available to students, are life changing — and many have residual impacts.
What students see when they step out of their comfortable collegiate lives often surprises and challenges them. They rarely come home and let their experiences go. Many students are driven to do more. They find what might be called a kind of contagious goodness.
Such is the case of one student I met online over the weekend. Catherine “Cat” Elsby (’11) from Lavallette, N.J, is a SMAD major who is smitten with the orphaned children of Honduras.
“I volunteered for Students Helping Honduras over Spring Break and traveled to Honduras to help build a children’s home,” Cat wrote. “The conditions there really shook me up.” This was not Cat’s first trip. She’s also traveled to Belize with ASB.
Working with the organization that began on another Virginia campus in 2005, Cat helped build a children’s home. While there, she visited an orphanage. “The children had bugs crawling all over them and they were caked in dirt. They were lying on cement floors and cutting the weeds with machetes,” Cat wrote. “I was so shocked and upset, and I just wanted to give those children something they’ve never had before: hope.”
Like so many of her generation, wanting translated into doing.
“It’s so overwhelming to see the conditions they live in. I want to help improve those conditions any way I can,” Cat wrote.
When Cat returned to JMU, she got to work. She is raising money to help build the Villa Soleada Children’s Home. “I’ve been asking friends, family business, anyone for donations, and holding diverse fundraising events at my house.”
The Villa Soleada Orphanage will provide shelter, food, education and a loving family to the orphaned and abandoned children in northern Honduras. So far, Cat has raised more than $1000 and wants to double that by the semester’s end.
Students Helping Honduras welcomes both group and individual efforts like Cat’s. According to their website, SHH has established chapters at more than 100 colleges and high schools, including a JMU chapter as well.
Apparently, goodness is contagious indeed.
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