By Jaimie Winters
Taylor Burfeind doesn’t “need” anything anymore.
The 20-year-old Towson University sophomore says her view of the world changed dramatically during the school’s winter break, when she spent 10 days helping people in the poverty stricken country of Haiti.
“It really changed the word ‘need’ for me,” Burfeind said. “I will never again say, ‘I need coffee, I need to take a shower,’ anything like that. College becomes something that you are blessed to have and something that you are lucky to be able to experience.”
Burfeind was one of four Towson students who participated in the trip, which was sponsored by the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission. Five other students from other colleges also attended.
The students worked with the Institute of Grace, an organization in Haiti that funds construction projects and provides education and medical care to the country’s underprivileged. As part of the project, the American students helped relocate elementary school children from a hospital where they were taking classes to an actual school building.
Burfeind said the Americans first built a temporary school building at the hospital until the new school building was completed.
“The kids were taking classes in the pediatric wing of this hospital there and obviously the hospital can’t be operational and have patients if there is a school being run in it,” Burfeind said.
However, this intense laboring was only part of their job.
“We would play with the kids,” Burfeind said. “A couple days during the work hours we would trade off going to teach English lessons and computer lessons to the students in the school.”
Burfeind said the experience had a huge impact on her. She said she appreciates what she has in the United States, adding that she now views the world much differently.
“I think perspective is the biggest thing because I walk around and I’m still in shock at how wealthy we are,” Burfeind said. “You’re like, wow, these people [of Haiti] are so rich in that the views, the nature here is amazing and different then what we have at home, but they have nothing materialistically. It’s such stark poverty contrasting with a beautiful landscape.”
Although Burfeind’s time in the Caribbean is over, she is trying to continue what she started in Haiti.
“I have been able to sponsor a child on my own and then was able to get a student group that I’m involved in to be able to sponsor one too, so that changes that girls whole life and her opportunities,” Burfeind said.
Burfeind said she will also be going back next winter break through the same program.
The Volunteers in Mission program is just one opportunity for college students looking to help those who are less fortunate.
Towson offers both Alternate Break Connections and Students Helping Honduras.
Towson students Caitlyn Carpentier and Abby Conway, both seniors, went with the Towson program Students Helping Honduras in January 2012 and worked on building a bilingual school there.
“It just helps humble you, and brings you down to earth,” Conway said. “The things we have here — the computers — if children there saw a camera they would just want to hold it because they have never seen that before.”
“I didn’t realize how much I have living in a First World country, because going to a Third World country, little things like walking to the store to get milk was like a day’s activity,” Carpentier said.
Burfeind knows the feeling.
“No matter what program you go through, serving people of another culture or of a different socioeconomic level than you is so essential to realize how fortunate you are and also to give you perspective and priorities,” Burfeind said. “Anything community service related is going to give you a new outlook on life and a new way to look at the things that you normally complain about. They say First World problems here, but they aren’t even problems at all.”