My Alternative Spring Break in Baltimore

By: Megha Gupta ‘18

We land in Baltimore one early, early Saturday morning, and what do we see first but a Trump family?

This trip did not get off to a favorable start.

After flying for 6 hours from chilly, windy California the first day of freedom after two and a half grueling months of school, I don’t think anybody was ready for what was to come our way in the next week.

Four friendly, almost too-enthusiastic faces greeted us at the airport, twenty of us loaded into minivans, and we drove through Baltimore to land ourselves in the craft room of a Boys and Girls Club that had clearly seen some better days. However, we were young, hungry, and ready to do some work. After driving through some of the city ourselves, we chowed down on Italian food and gelato to our heart’s content and prepared ourselves for the week to come.

Sunday

We traveled to DC! As we had gotten to Baltimore a bit before schedule, we stopped in on the nation’s Capitol to check out where some of the most major change happens in our country. 

We took those touristy pictures, we updated our Snap Stories, and we found ourselves bonding with these new, honestly sort of strange people. I even saw a baby get run over by a stroller in front of the Smithsonian. It was quite the day, and we were quite tired. We reached back safe and sound, however, and met all of the other schools coming to share this Spring Break experience with us, including University of Massachusetts Amherst, Wells College, and University of Bridgeport, amongst some other people just there to do some good.

Monday and Tuesday

We woke up at unseemly early hours to drive out to service sites around Baltimore, hear stories of people, and try to understand why people were in their position and what was being done to help various social issues plaguing Baltimore such as poverty, hunger, homelessness, mental health, education, and healthcare ability.

Wednesday and Thursday

We woke up early, did some service, and while some of us went to Johns Hopkins and entertained cancer patients, others stayed back and either did other service activities or occupied themselves with fun activities in Baltimore! The Inner Harbor was our go-to spot for all of that good food (and coffee, and gelato, sometimes both at once).

Friday

Our last day of service.  It was kind of bittersweet. We were undercaffeinated and overexhausted but more than that we were more understanding and overwhelmed with what we had felt, learned, experienced, and witnessed.

Not only did we reflect on all the little pieces that really meant someone could have the privilege of good or bad health, or look at public systems in place that made it difficult for someone to reach and maintain a healthy lifestyle, we were exposed to a far greater system of injustices that built upon each other to suppress a huge segment of the population. Not only that, but we were forced to face the idea that USC and Johns Hopkins, despite being physically located in places that have a lot of room for people to help out, were being strangely distant to these issues looking as an outsider into the situation.

Saturday

Wow, a week had passed. We woke, we brunched, and we bid Baltimore a goodbye.

In between all of the scraping of Crock-Pots clean and listening to these incredible stories and hoarding granola bars to hand out to homeless individuals and learning how to set up a cot in under thirty seconds, our crew became incredibly close. We were tested and tried, but spending those 168 hours together bonded us in a way no one foresaw, I think.

I’m personally so grateful to have been able to go on this trip and go learn, grow, and experience with all of these wonderful new friends I have made at USC. Who knew it simply took flying across the country and showering at a YMCA to make friends for life?

Keep on fighting on, from here and from Baltimore!