Miami students choose STAY-cation over beach holiday

They could have escaped the Ohio weather during spring break, but a group of Miami University Hamilton (MUH) students will be staying put to research and serve low-income and impoverished areas of Hamilton during next week's break, March 8-12. 

The 11 students will be spending time in local homeless shelters, nonprofit agencies, faith-based organizations and businesses to learn about the impact of joblessness and poverty in the area. They will meet with community leaders to build partnerships and to understand the importance of financial literacy in different socioeconomic classes. 

The students will begin the week with a poverty simulation from 2-5 p.m. Monday, March 8, at Second Harvest Foodbank in Fairfield. The session will guide them through understanding life in poverty with different circumstances. 

“This is the first time we are offering a spring break trip to work with inspiring community partners who are doing incredible work here in Hamilton,” said Jessica Reading, community placement coordinator, Ohio Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA. “As a response to the decline in civic health in the state of Ohio, educating our citizens about the increasing rates in unemployment, joblessness and poverty is increasingly important. The Center for Civic Engagement at Miami Hamilton and local Hamilton community leaders believe the potential to impact our local community is just as important as any other alternative spring break.” 

For sophomore organizational leadership and applied sociology major Ashley Hampton, the choice of this spring break was easy. “This is really going to impact my education and goal of being a community or nonprofit leader one day,” Hampton said. “I can’t think of many times I will get the chance to stay in my local community for a week and really immerse myself in the problems of poverty, joblessness and homelessness. We are going to be put face to face with the problems of Hamilton, and get to explore why they are there and how we can help to fix them as a college and a community.” 

Ashley writes for the Hamilton Harrier – MUH’s new newspaper at (www.hamiltonharrier.com) and will post journal entries of hers and other students throughout the week of STAY-cation. 

Seven of the students also will be presenting at IMPACT, a national conference on advocacy, social justice and service March 19-21 in Little Rock, AR. They will share what they learned throughout the STAY-cation, explore issues related to poverty and joblessness in local communities and strategize with others on how younger generations can enter the decade educated and ready to make a positive impact in their communities. 

“I really hope to learn how to make a difference by doing this” Hampton added. “But at the very least, (I’ll) connect with the community so in the future I know where to go if I want to truly help.”