CHESTERTOWN – While most college students are jetting south for fun in the sun during spring break a group of students from Florida headed in the opposite direction for some hard work.
Eight students and one faculty advisor from the University of Central Florida in Orlando descended upon the Mid-Atlantic Border Collie Rescue this week as part of Alternative Spring Break.
Alternative Spring Break, or ASB as it is often called, teams up groups of students with nonprofits across the country for service learning projects. In the past, students from UCF have worked with Habitat for Humanity, the Jekyll Island Sea Turtle Center, and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief.
Instead of lying on the beach and working on their tans, students will be helping with everything from kennel cleanings and maintenance to dog grooming duties.
"This is the coolest group of kids I've every come across," said Sarah Ruckelshaus, who runs the border collie rescue group from her Victory Farm on Route 20. "These kids are excellent. They're doing a variety of projects; there's a never ending supply of work to be done here."
This isn't the first experience with ASB for many of the students. Faraaz Merchant, 22, a senior majoring in molecular and microbiology, has been on an ASB trip every year that he has been in college.
"In school we sit and go through classes all day. It's good to get out and pull some nails out of old boards," he said Monday.
Merchant, who was the director of the school's ASB program last year and runs the Web site this year, said the program has slowly gotten bigger since 2002 when it was first introduced on campus.
"We have ten trips this year and next year we're expecting to have our first international trip."
How the group found the border collie rescue group is a funny story in and of itself.
"When Arienne Feliciano (the site leader) first e-mailed me back in July I thought it was some sort of scam," Ruckelshaus said.
But after some research and convincing by Feliciano, Ruckelshaus was more than happy to welcome the group to her home.
For Feliciano, a 21-year-old forensic science major, the desire to work with border collies was more of a home-grown experience.
"I had a border collie for ten years, he just passed away in November, and he was the sweetest, nicest dog I knew," she said.
When the ASB committee, which Feliciano is also member of, was looking for site places over the summer, she got on the computer and did an Internet search for animals.
"I crossed out all the states that were too far away … I came across the rescue group and knew this trip would absolutely be wonderful," she said.
After a fairly rigorous application process, students must have a 2.5 GPA, detail previous volunteer experience, and write an essay, Feliciano had her team.
Whitney Prevatt, 19, a communications science disorder major, said that each team member got to pick which trip they wanted to go on. For Prevatt it was an easy choice.
"I just really love animals. I love volunteering for all sorts of things," she said. "I'm not into partying and this seemed like a good alternative."
For Brendali Melgoza, 30, the advisor on the trip, it wasn't the animals that drew her to Chestertown.
"I definitely have a heart to give back and I'm really into service," she said. "Although this wasn't my top choice I'm happy to be here."
Melgoza even admitted to having her "first crying moment" earlier in the day while cleaning out a dog's kennel.
"He thought we were taking his home," she said.
It's not all hard work for the group of students. Ruckelshaus had several guest speakers and day trips lined up to reward the group for their hard work."Everyday we have something happening that we hope the kids will find fun," she said. "We want to inspire these kids that there are really interesting people out there. Just because you're an accountant doesn't mean you can't have an interesting life."
The first "guest lecturer" of the week was Chris Bartos, curator of ungulates, or hoofed animals, at the Philadelphia Zoo.
Bartos trained Finn, a one-year-old border collie she received from Ruckelshaus, to track cheetah scat.
Finn, Bartos explained, will soon leave for Namibia, South Africa to begin work with the Cheetah Conservation Fund. There Finn will work closely with a genetics team that will analyze the cheetah scat to track the predator's eating habits, its health, and its movements.
"I'm going to go with him and stay with him for about a month," to train his new handler, Bartos said. "It's going to be hard to say goodbye, they're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming onto the plane."
When asked what advice she had to offer to the college students, Bartos kept it simple.
"Find something you love, don't do something because someone else tells you to do it," she said. "Basically you'll be surprised where your paths will lead you. I love to work with dogs. I love to do tracking. Who would have thought that this would've led me to work with cheetahs."
And if the students happen to love working with border collies there will always be a place for them in Kent County.
"I'd welcome them back in a heart beat," Ruckelshaus said.
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