A group of Elizabethtown College students lived out the school’s Educate for Service motto by giving back to the local community during the Center for Community and Civic Engagement’s (CCCE) Fall Break Service Trip on Oct. 6-8.
The team of 10 Blue Jays remained on campus over break to take part in the service initiative with each completing over 16 hours of service a piece. It marked the first fall break trip at the College since 2019.
Each day, Etown students traveled to assist a different local partner on service activities, including the Milagro House in Lancaster, the Bethesda Mission’s men’s mission in Harrisburg, and Lancaster’s Bright Side Opportunity Center.
“Over the course of our fall break, students were able to learn, grow, and reflect as they served moms and their children in transitional housing, homeless individuals accessing meals, and a community organization raising funds for their youth programming,” Javita Thompson, Director of the CCCE said. “Students gained a perspective into others’ lived experiences and came away with a deeper understanding of what it means to live in a community with others.”
Service activities included winterizing the Milagro Houses’ yard with general cleanup tasks such as weeding and hedge trimming, making and packaging more than 250 sandwiches for the Bethesda Mission’s mobile street mission, as well as assisting Bright Side during their annual Fall Fest fundraiser that supports their mission of providing leadership and learning opportunities to youth in southwest Lancaster City.
“The College’s “Educate for Service” motto has been extremely important to my Etown experience,” Ariea O’Krepka ’25, a Secondary Education and History double major said. “I believe being an active participant in your community is a major way we can be well-rounded individuals and Etown has pushed me to do this. Educating for service is educating for action and it gives purpose to the paths we take after College.”
The students also packaged and delivered more than 500 scarves to the Bethesda Mission, which were donated by the College as part of an incoming student deposit campaign last fall. Etown committed to donating one scarf to a local service organization for every Class of 2026 student who made their enrollment deposit to Etown before May 1, 2022.