Students Learn — And Work — During Winter Break Immersion Trips

They started their trip at a lumber yard.

And over the course of five days in early January, a group of students, accompanied by faculty and staff, from Rockhurst University and Spring Hill College, made a measurable difference in one family’s life during their solidarity immersion trip in Belize.

The trip, Rockhurst’s first with Spring Hill College under the two institutions’ strategic alliance, was in partnership with Hand in Hand Ministries, which supports housing, health care and education in several sites, including Belize. It was one of two solidarity immersion trips offered over the winter to students through Rockhurst University's campus ministry office.

Rockhurst University sponsors solidarity immersion trips both in the United States and abroad several times a year, giving students the opportunity to experience the world beyond campus or their home communities. Though service is a component of the trip, the students also learn about the perspectives and the people in the locations they travel to. 

According to Todd Hopkins, director of transfer and graduate admissions and one of two faculty and staff companions for the students, the group in Belize helped complete a new home for a young mother, Keisha, and her 3-year-old son. The students were involved each step of the way, working alongside the family and others to complete the home. It was a chance to get to know the family who would soon move into the house. At the end of the week, they celebrated the completion of the house and turned the keys over, so to speak, in a ceremony.

“We were all crying because we had developed a relationship with this sweet soul,” he said.

Farnan said he has had the opportunity to travel internationally in the past, but this trip was completely different. Working in these communities gave him a completely different perspective and appreciation for the people of Belize.

“Being fully immersed into the culture to help them with real issues they encounter in everyday life was super special,” he said. “I am forever changed in how I view the privileges of housing, education and food. It was a life-changing experience.”

Belize was not the only destination for students this January. Over the weekend leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, another group of students took part in the Civil Rights solidarity immersion experience, traveling to Alabama to visit sites critical to the history of the mid 20th-Century struggle against inequality — the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama; the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma; and the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham. For McKenzie Robinson, an occupational therapy student, the trip was a chance to reflect on history and connect with students she hadn’t known prior.

“It really made me think about history and how life has evolved into what it is today. It's been eye-opening to compare and contrast how the past is compared to what life is right now,” she said. “Talking to the girls and reflecting with each other impacted me the most. I loved seeing how a group of girls from different backgrounds can come together and relate and interact with our own experiences… experiences I had on this trip have given me a different perspective on how I view life as not only a student, but a person.”