Building Hope, Changing Lives
C.W. Post Students Get Hands on Experience in Helping Others

Creating a Dream — Some of the “Builders of Hope” from the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University pose with the newly completed walls of the second floor of house they built in Tijuana, Mexico.  Bottom row: (L to R) Naya Valentin (Bronx, NY); Valerie Grehan (Centereach, NY) ; Second Row: Danielle Hindieh (Roslyn, NY); Johanna Charneco (Brooklyn, NY); Third Row: Sunil Persaud (Queens, NY); Julianne Lovejoy (Clearwater, FL); Top row: Esperanza International Incorporated Volunteer Valentin; Tony Persaud, (Queens, NY); Jephanie Ramos (Brooklyn, NY).

July 21, 2005 – Brookville, NY – One brick at a time. Students and alumni from the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University learned that’s what it takes to change lives as they traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, working with Esperanza International Incorporated to build homes and transform a community.

The volunteers – who are members of the C.W. Post Catholic Campus Parish – spent a week in the sun, laying bricks, digging trenches and pouring cement, building homes for needy families, all while learning about themselves.

“Since I’ve returned from Mexico, there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about the people or what I saw,” said Steve Hinderhofer, a 2005 graduate of C.W. Post. “It was a mind- and life-altering experience.” The Middle Island resident, who graduated with a dual degree in health and physical education, said his experiences will impact the way he teaches in the classroom. “I will never look at life the same way again,” he said.

Esperanza International’s aim is “total development of the community,” said Father Ted Brown, MS, C.W. Post’s Catholic Chaplain and a member of the Board of Directors for Esperanza International. “The group clearly comes from Catholic perspective,” he said. “All Christians are to be heralds of good news and this is a way of really doing that. It’s also to help students transform the thought that charity means simply writing a check.We need to come face to face with those who need our help.”

In 2001, five volunteers from C.W. Post went to Tijuana for the first time, uncertain of what awaited them. This year a group of 19 students, including one from the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University and several alumni, made the journey. “Many were repeats,” Father Brown said. “They love the experience so much they have to go back.” One of the original volunteers in 2001, Julieann Lovejoy, a member of the C.W. Post softball team, has made the trip five times. This year she served as the leader.

To raise money for travel expenses, the group held several fundraisers. One of the volunteers, Casandra Harding, who works for M.A.C. Cosmetics, enlisted five of her colleagues to apply makeup to participants in a fashion show and raised more than $700.

It takes about a month for a home to be completed. In their week of work, the student volunteers completed two walls on two different buildings. The group also had the opportunity to work at a school, planting trees around a soccer field. While completing their task, the students were challenged to a game of soccer by the high school team. “We all won friends that day,” said Father Brown.

“That was a very different day for our group,” he continued. “It was probably the best day.” The C.W. Post students spoke to the school principal about the hardest part of running a school that was in the middle of nowhere. “He said the hardest part was being put in jail for a week for opening the school,” Father Brown said. “I think the reality that someone could be imprisoned for establishing a school really made our kids rethink their views on education. The students in that school building wanted to be there. It’s their way out of poverty.”

On July 12 the group reunited among friends, sponsors, and invited guests to share their stories and experiences. “I could talk for hours about the trip,” says Hinderhofer.

For more information, contact Father Brown at 516-299-2229 or visit www.cwpost.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/stuact/interfaith/catholic/index.htm or http://esperanzainternational.org on the web.