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By SASCHA BRODSKY; Times Leader Staff Writer
Thursday, March 16, 1995     Page: 3A

While spring break means beaches and parties for many college students,
eight Wilkes University students are forsaking sun for sweat this year.
   
They are spending their school vacations in Mobile, Ala., working with
people with physical and mental disabilities, as part of a program called
Break Away.
    Meanwhile, 11 students from the University of Virginia are helping out on
local projects until the end of the week in a program organized by the
Volunteer Action Center of United Way of Wyoming Valley in cooperation with
Madison House.
   
And a program at King’s College, called Appalachia Away, has been sending
students to work on rural projects for 10 years.
   
They’re all part of a growing number of students donating their time to
such causes, according to university and charity officials.
   
About 10,000 students from 350 colleges around the country are volunteering
for alternative spring breaks this year, said Michael Magevney, the
26-year-old executive director of Break Away.
   
Magevney, who graduated from Vanderbilt University with majors in
philosophy and political science, is a former volunteer. He helped form Break
Away in 1991 after realizing the need to match students with the organizations
that need them.
   
“Without these students, houses wouldn’t get painted, meals wouldn’t get
delivered and trees not planted,” he said.
   
Mark Allen, Wilkes University’s associate dean of student affairs, said the
school has been running volunteer trips during fall and spring break for the
last three years.
   
“Our volunteer programs have grown faster than we anticipated,” Allen said.
   
Wilkes students are in Alabama from March 10-19.
   
Tara Trivelpiece of Lake Winola, a Wilkes sophomore, said she decided to go
to Alabama instead of on vacation.
   
“It’s a better experience,” said Trivelpiece, 19, speaking by phone from
Alabama. “Instead of doing something for ourselves we are getting to help
another community.”
   
Brother Dennis Fleming, director of student volunteer services for King’s
College, agreed that student interest in volunteering has been on the rise.
   
For a week this August, about 12 students will help build houses for needy
families in Maine as part of the university’s Appalachia Away program.
   
Both colleges’ volunteer trips are paid for mainly by student fund-raising
efforts.
   
The University of Virginia students’ projects include building a ramp for a
Kunkle man who has difficulty leaving his trailer because he uses a
wheelchair.
   
“At school it’s so busy we don’t have time to give much back to the
community,” said Kim Apple, a 19-year-old University of Virginia student, as
she took a break from painting the walls of a South River Street building used
for tutoring low-income children. “This gives us the opportunity to experience
real life.”
   
TIMES LEADER/LEWIS GEYER
   
University of Virginia sophomores Josh Reider and Kim Apple varnish a
sliding door at Mercy Place, 422 S. River St. Students painted the building,
used for community outreach programs by the Sisters of Mercy, as part of an
alternative spring break program offered by the United Way.