Raising Money for Service Learning Trip

The upcoming semester break will provide OCC's nursing students with an opportunity to learn the power of helping others. Students will be going to Guatemala to teach residents about community health topics such as oral hygiene, lice prevention, reproductive health and prevention and treatment of malnutrition, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases.

The service learning trip costs approximately $2,000 per student. Nursing students make ends meet through numerous fundraisers. In the last weekend of October they held a spaghetti dinner at the Salvation Army Onondaga Tabernacle in Liverpool. The Salvation Army generously donated its facility and helped set up themed tables for the event.

Nursing students will continue to hold fundraisers between now and the end of the fall semester. They are selling t-shirts which feature the OCC Nursing logo and the following quote from Ghandi: "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." T-shirts cost $20 each and can be ordered by emailing Assistant Professor Mary Berg at m.l.berg@sunyocc.edu. Students are also selling Bebrave jewelry for which they will receive a $10 donation for each piece they sell.

Berg brought nursing students to Guatemala during the previous academic year and is coordinating the fundraisers and the upcoming trip. "The nursing students and I are very grateful for the wonderful support we have received from our college community and from our many family and friends. The benefit of these service learning trips is remarkable. People in Guatemala will share what they learn with their families and friends, and generations from now people may still be living healthier lives because of what our students taught."