At Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the Alternative Spring Break Program is an opportunity for students to experience issues affecting communities first hand by participating in service during Spring Break. For Spring 2007, Winthrop students, faculty and staff members spent a portion of their Spring Break in Folly Beach, SC serving the surrounding communities. Activities included building a house with Sea Habitat for Humanity, beach restoration along Isle of Palms, artificial reef creation on John's Island, and facilitating a mentoring program with a local high school. This week a bus load of student volunteers from Winthrop’s suburban campus near Charlotte were welcomed by a variety of organizations and communities in Chattanooga.

In Alton Park, the Environmental Health and Justice Collaborative hosted the group on Monday, March 17. The students have studied about the history of contamination and community involvement in Alton Park as part of the curriculum at Winthrop. As a result, students will meet neighborhood activists like Milton Jackson, President of STOP (Stop Toxic Pollution) on a tour of the Chattanooga Creek Superfund remediation site.

After the tour, the Winthrop University group helped construct a Greenhouse at the Calvin Donaldson Elementary School in Alton Park with help from PTA parents and members of the Environmental Health and Justice Collaborative. The Winthrop volunteers also presented a check for $200 to Valerie Brown, Principal at Calvin Donaldson Environmental Sciences Academy. The money will be used toward purchasing the first plants for the greenhouse. The school is planning to use hydroponic systems that will help classes at Calvin Donaldson better understand the science of food, nutrition and health as they participate in growing vegetables and flowers in the new on-site greenhouse. (Read more about the mission of the greenhouse project here.)

After dinner, the Environmental Health and Justice Collaborative partners shared information with the Winthrop students about the scope of the work taking place in Alton Park/Piney Woods funded through a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, including the Neighborhood Environmental College courses for adult and youth residents.