From Sunday, May 31, through Thursday, June 18, a group of volunteers from Elizabethtown will demonstrate how far community service can go. Eighteen students from Elizabethtown College's Service Learning program will travel with four professors and volunteers from Brittany's Hope to South Vietnam and North Vietnam, visiting five of Brittany's Hope's partnered children's homes and serving six communities along the way.

"This is a deeply hands-on service trip centered on practical help, relationship-building and cultural connection," shared Dana Myers, director of charitable giving for Brittany's Hope. "All attendees pay their own way, attend a Vietnam prep class and raise funds for the work they will help carry out while in Vietnam. Through individual efforts and Brittany's Hope fundraising, the group will help complete approximately $100,000 worth of projects."

Work will include building houses for homeless families; improving the infrastructure of Brittany's Hope's children's homes; delivering gifts collected from U.S. sponsors, donors and community members, including computers donated by Clark Associates and chocolate from Mars; providing food relief in the communities the volunteers visit; and giving bicycles to children who face long commutes to school, helping to make education more accessible.

"Another meaningful part of the trip is taking the children from each children's home on a field trip so they can have fun and explore beautiful parts of their own country that many of them have never had the opportunity to see," Myers said. "These outings create joy, lasting memories and a sense of dignity and belonging."

Students will also help deliver Family Enterprise gifts to single mothers who are working to earn an income while remaining home with their children. These gifts may include chickens, cows, fruit trees and other resources that can help a family build stability and self-sufficiency, Myers said.

Students on the trip are studying occupational and physical therapy, so the trip also provides an opportunity to offer care under the direct supervision of their professors. In addition to providing therapy, the students will help train caregivers so that children can continue receiving support after the team returns home.

The trip is not all business, however. Relationship-building is an important aspect of the visit, according to Myers, who added that students may play soccer or volleyball with the children or just hang out together.

"It is also especially meaningful for children with disabilities, who are often shunned or marginalized in their communities," Myers said. "When local communities see American students treating children with disabilities with joy, dignity and normalcy, it sends a powerful message about each child's worth."

Brittany's Hope began hosting trips like this in 2007 as part of its long-term commitment to children and families in Vietnam.

"Dr. Peggy McFarland, professor of social work emerita for Elizabethtown College, who helped to start this Service Learning trip in 2007, is actually one of the Brittany's Hope volunteers who will be joining the trip this year," Myers remarked.

Headquartered in Elizabethtown, Brittany's Hope is a nonprofit that aids orphaned and at-risk children. It provides adoption grants for families to adopt special needs children, and the organization also supports humanitarian efforts with its partner children's homes in Vietnam, Kenya and Ethiopia.

"This trip is important because it creates (a) real, tangible impact for children and families, while also building life-changing relationships," Myers said. "For the children and communities in Vietnam, the benefits are significant. They receive improved housing, safer and stronger children's homes, bicycles that help them get to school more easily, food relief, therapy services and gifts that meet practical and emotional needs. They also receive something harder to measure but just as important: time, attention, friendship and the encouragement that comes from being cared for by people who traveled across the world to be with them."

For the Elizabethtown College students, the trip offers hands-on experience and opportunities to gain practical clinical experience.

"But beyond that, they gain perspective," Myers said. "They see the difference they can make in the world, and many return home with a stronger sense of purpose, compassion and commitment to service. In many cases, students remain connected long after the trip ends by becoming child sponsors and continuing relationships with the children they met."

The public can support this trip and the children and communities it serves in several ways.

"People can purchase a gift from Brittany's Hope's Amazon Wish List, and those items will be delivered directly to Brittany's Hope," Myers said. "They can also bring gifts to Brittany's Hope, including unwrapped toys, clothing, art supplies and other items that children ages 3 to 15 would enjoy." Financial support is also appreciated. Donations may be made at https://brittanyshope.org by selecting "Donate" and then choosing the Vietnam Trip option.