Findlay, Ohio, March 18, 2002 — Six students from The University of Findlay spent their spring break working with a non-profit organization in greater Cleveland through an Alternative Spring Break opportunity offered by UF’s Campus Compact Center for Service and Learning.

The students worked with University Settlement, a non-profit agency housed in the Broadway community in the Slavic Village district of Cleveland. Together, the group volunteered with a number of projects, including reading to children in the Fleet Day Care Center, packaging groceries in the Hunger Center, building a patio at a senior citizens/assisted living home, participating in crafts with senior citizens and interacting with the clients of University Settlement on a daily basis.

University Settlement offers the Broadway community 21 programs, which range from welfare to work training to transitional housing options. The Hunger Center serves about 1,700 families per month and feeds their senior citizen clients daily.

In addition to their work at University Settlement, the UF students attended a teach-in hosted by the Northeast Ohio Coalition on the Homeless, which allowed community members, students and people interested in the homeless problem in Cleveland an opportunity to tour the shelter facilities. The students toured 2100 Lakeside, a Salvation Army facility that houses 410 men each night, visited a woman’s transitional housing and Section 8 apartment complex that provides housing for up to two years and took a trip to Volunteers of America, which provides shelter outreach, emergency shelter, transitional living programs, Veterans’ community crisis and a men’s treatment program for their 22 residents.