ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070034
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FRIES
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
It is a subject they have all learned firsthand, having spent fall and spring breaks in communities such as Fries, Ivanhoe, Floyd and Westmoreland County over the past three years.
The five have all been students of Nelda Pearson, professor of sociology and anthropology at Radford. The bonding that occurs during those working breaks has been strong enough to keep even those who have graduated in contact with Pearson in person, by telephone or e-mail.
The retreat is expected to draw 30 or 40 students from Virginia Tech; the Virginia colleges of Emory & Henry, Bridgewater and Longwood; Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C.; and Villa Julie College, Baltimore, Md.
Zeldoy "Pete" Barger, one of the leaders, gave a variety of reasons for coming back to take part in the retreat.
"Part of it is it fits in with my graduate studies," said Barger, a sociology major who graduated from Radford last spring. "But part of it is it's an opportunity to give people an experience that they might not be able to get otherwise. And it's what I want to do, too."
The other retreat leaders are Brook Thompson and Stephanie Jo Hudgins, both psychology majors who graduated last December; Dannah Card, a sociology major; and Eric Bucey, who is dividing his major between sociology and engineering.
"It's, I want to say, real work. It affects real people," said Hudgins, during the final planning session for the retreat in Radford's Ingles Hall. Card agreed, saying she had been involved in several of the working breaks "and I think they're a great experience."
Pearson learned of a program encouraging students to use their spring breaks for community service while she was doing research in Floyd about four years ago. "It was something that was just beginning to be talked about," she said.
Maxine Waller, a resident of Ivanhoe, which straddles the Wythe-Carroll county line, had long been prominent in community activism. Ivanhoe has played host to many student teams in recent years. Pearson said she learned a lot from Waller that she has tried to pass on to her students.
"That was a steep learning curve," Pearson said. "After that, I went to communities that Maxine had started to train."
Her students have spent three breaks working in Ivanhoe, two each in Fries and Westmoreland County and one in Floyd. "We always go to Ivanhoe in the spring. That's a rule of Maxine's," Pearson said.
One reason this weekend's retreat is not at Ivanhoe is because Fries has a large recreation building to house the session.
Usually 10 to 12 students go together to a community during their spring or fall breaks, Pearson said, instead of going home or to vacation spots like Fort Lauderdale, Fla., or Cancun, Mexico.
"They have built privies. They have done a lot of house renovation ... everything from putting new roofs on to repairing steps to a porch," Pearson said. "One thing we did in Floyd was we cleaned up a lot of elderly people's yards after the ice storm." At that time, the homes had no electric power because of downed lines.
"They've put up fences. They've cleaned hedgerows. They've taken down sheds," she said. "They have also done basic housekeeping for these elderly women."
While it is nothing like lying on a beach, the students do get a lot out of their labors, Pearson said.
"The students are very moved by these experiences, and I would say they get more than they give," she said. "You can see how much it changes them."
Some of the things the five from Radford University will tell those at the retreat concerns expectations.
Some volunteers come to communities with a save-the-world attitude, and are disappointed that poverty levels are not as low as they expected.
"It's what my students call 'the white-knight syndrome,'" Pearson said.
While anticipating abject poverty in the communities, she said, some students want to live in middle-class motels while doing feel-good work. But it does not work that way. The students live in the communities, which are often better organized to help themselves than some students have realized.
"We also deal with conflicts within the group," Pearson said. "You might have two or three factions emerge within the student group, and they're fighting among themselves. ... We'll be discussing a lot of these issues."
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Nelda Pearson, Radford University sociology professorby CNB(center) works with students and graduates Stephanie Jo Hudgins
(upper left), Dannah Card (lower left), Pete Barger (upper right)
and Eric Bucey (lower right). color.