Zepeda participates in Emmanuel’s Boston-based alternative spring break

    BOSTON — During the week of March 8, Lydia Zepeda of Dover-Foxcroft and a group of fellow Emmanuel College students participated in the college’s annual Alternative Spring Break (ASB) in Boston, learning about, connecting with and taking positive action in the community in which they live and learn. ASB a week-long, faith-based service trip held during the college’s traditional spring break that bridges volunteer work with education and reflection on larger social issues.

    For the second year, the Boston group stayed at the college’s new Notre Dame campus in Roxbury, Mass. and focused on food justice and access, which seeks to ensure that the benefits and risks of where, what and how food is grown, produced, transported, distributed, accessed and eaten are shared fairly. Students also learned about the history and demographics of Boston and how to work with the community to move forward.
    The group completed service projects at Pine Street Inn, Community Servings, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Rosie’s Place, The Food Project, the Franciscan Food Center at St. Anthony Shrine and ReVision Urban Farm. As part of the Notre Dame campus’s new Urban Food Project, the group, working with Roxbury resident and urban-gardening expert Patti Moreno (Patti the Garden Girl), began herb, vegetable and floral seedlings for the campus’s forthcoming urban garden, which will be planted later this spring. As the Urban Food Project also focuses on education, the group conducted educational workshops on healthy eating, shopping on a budget and urban gardening at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Mission Grammar School and Nazareth Residence for Mothers.