Students participate in annt1al service trip to West Virginia

Notice to Campus Residents.

A memo .to the residents of the New Residence Hall was sent out on March 12 from Resident Director Tricia Arnold.

"To the members of the New Residence Hall Community:

"In the early morning of March 12, 2002, the following incident took place in the New Residence Hall:

"• A fire alann was activated from a pull station on the third floor.

By the end of the week after all of the painting, our sweatshirts were completely coated in paint."

Finally, students worked with

by Karen Schweizer assistant sports editor

The annual service trip Project Appalachia focused on the hills of West Virginia and allowed students to participate in service work over spring break.

Several towns in West Virginia are floundering. Excessive strip mining, floods and loss of jobs have left the communities in a bad place. However last week, a program that is a twenty-year tradition created by the Campus Ministry, now the Wolfington Center, helped alleviate some of those problems. Students and staff traveled to West Virginia to help residents by working on three major community projects.

According to students the work they did was hard but rewarding, Cabrini decided to focus on the town of East Bank completely instead of splitting the focus with Union this year. Several people commented on the incredible scenery of the town, while one student Jamie Matozzo said that in areas "everyone had a dog," and that stray cats prowled the grounds freely.

In one project, workers were to rebuild a porch for a local thrift shop called The Mustard Seed.

The Mustard Seed is an important store because it also distributes foodstuffs to the community. The food is given out to families in the community who are in trouble.

"The most expensive thing in the thrift shop was probably only a quarter," Matozzo said.

Other students worked with the Southern Appalachia Labor School, a task force of high school dropouts and Americorps volunteers. The group worked to rehabilitate an eighty-year-old house in Page, W. Va. "We did plastering, drilling, building and sanding," said Mary Laver the projects coordinator. "Everyone got this white plaster dust in their hair."

One student, Josh Dzielak described the work that he did with his group, and fun that he had. "We had to be inventive,'' he said, "We had to paint a ceiling without a brush. So we took tape and taped a brush to a broomstick the West Virginia Presbytery as they worked to clean flood damage to a house that needed to be used to board future volunteers.

John Verdi cleans walls of the Manse. The students working at the Manse were making it livable for volunteers to stay at while working in West Virginia.

Over the summer, •floodwaters devastated the area and even swept several local houses down river. "Bat droppings had to be cleaned out of the attic," Laver said.

To cap off the week Cabrini volunteers did not forget old friends in Union, the town where fonner Project Appalachia members worked in. One night they joined together for a night of fun and a potluck dinner. A goat was born that day to the Appalachia's friends and it was named "Cabrini."

Wolfington Center Update:

• Tuna fish and peanut butter drive to benefit Patrician Society in Norristown until March 26

• Search X Retreat April 12-14

• Mass, every Sunday ?p.m.

"As a result of this inci~ dent, the New Residence Hall community will be suspended of ALL visitation privileges until April 1, 2002, at 12 noon as a result of the false fire alarm.

Residents are not penniued to be within l 00 feet of the building during this period if they are with a non-resident of the building. Immediate family members, RD's and RA's will be the only people pennitted in the building during this time.

"Should any further incidents occur during this time period, the New Residence Hall could lose visitation for an additional period of time,

''H anyone has infonnation on who ·took part in these incidents, please bring it to the attention of Public S-afety, an RA or [Tricia Arnold]. If the individuals(s) who are responsible for pulling the alarm are found, visitation in the building will be reinstated."