Spring Break
GUPY spring break is sort of like a condensed version of the summer. Its purpose is to expose students to a quick dose of the city and of Glenwood, hopefully enticing them to come back for more! We also strive to give students a Biblical framework on which to hang their service experience, so that they might carry it with them back to campus and apply the principle of GUPY to their lives.
Our time usually lasts five nights, and much of our days are spent serving with organizations in Greensboro who help the poor or marginalized. This can look like organizing furniture for refugee families in the Lutheran Family Services warehouse, sorting cans at Welfare Reform, or landscaping and cleanup in one of Glenwood’s parks, among other things.
Students are housed in Glenwood United Methodist Church, sleeping on cots or air mattresses, and groups are responsible for cooking their own meals each day. In the evening we have times of Scripture Study, and one evening we go out into the city to give food and blankets to the homeless via Salvation Army’s NightWatch ministry. Showers are infrequent, and are taken at a local YMCA, so be sure to pack plenty of deodorant!
Schools who have participated in GUPY spring break from 2005-2007 are: Lenoir-Rhyne College (Hickory, NC), UNC Wilmington, Roanoke College (Roanoke, VA), UNC Chapel Hill, Virginia Tech University, Radford University (Radford, VA), UNC Greensboro, and NC State University. In 2008, UNC Wilmington returns, along with College of Charleston, Davidson College (Davidson, NC), and Mary Washington University (Fredricksburg, VA), the week of March 1-9.