Kasina Entzi spent part of her spring break brewing a vat of tangy vinegar sauce to turn leftover marinara into sloppy joes for a few hundred of Denver’s homeless.
Nearby, fellow University of Denver students Sarah Davis and Katie Rickel plopped the sauce on buns and dished up peas, corn and carrots at the Denver Rescue Mission.
While their friends lounge on beaches or in ski-resort hot tubs, or perhaps head for exotic locales to build houses or teach English, 10 DU students are digging into downtown’s gritty underground on “urban immersion” spring break.
They’re exploring homelessness, poverty, immigration and school segregation in the heart of Denver. They sleep on bunk beds at the $20-a-night Hostel of the Rockies, walk or take public buses or light rail, and eat in inexpensive ethnic cafes, many in Denver’s multicultural Five Points neighborhood.
Each day, the DU students meet community activists who run homeless shelters, medical clinics and a day-labor center that helps immigrants find work. They tour a charter school, take a guided walk through Five Points and have appointments with Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet, Mayor John Hickenlooper and former Gov. Dick Lamm.
“It’s not like one of those ‘Let’s go to Mexico, fix up a village, pretend America doesn’t have problems and go home,”‘ said Entzi, an 18-year-old freshman from San Antonio. “It’s real ly getting at the heart of problems here.”
Students selected for the urban immersion paid $150 and had to write several short essays.
Most said they want to know the city beyond the boundaries of the DU campus, and several are planning careers in community activism.
“College provides this bubble for every student to live in,” Entzi said. “It’s almost like a privilege to ignore the rest of the community.”
“Alternative” spring breaks are popular at colleges across the country, but most involve travel. Thousands of college students, including some from Regis University, Colorado College and the U.S. Air Force Academy, are spending spring break this year in Louisiana and Mississippi, cleaning up muck and mess from Hurricane Katrina.
Almost 90 Colorado State University students are on eight alternative spring-break trips, from building a bird- watching deck in Achiote, Panama, to organizing “gay bingo” to raise money for AIDS awareness in Seattle.
Other DU students are setting up a school computer lab in Pinos, Mexico, and building a home in Juarez.
“It’s great to have a broader-based understanding of national issues and global issues, but it’s especially important for students who want to be agents of change to see how you change the local community,” said Glenn Fee, associate director of community engagement and service learning at DU.
He chose students for DU’s first urban-immersion spring break “who will potentially stick around and make an impact as leaders in the Denver community.”
Fee, who lives in Five Points, is taking the students to some of his favorite hangouts – Ethel’s House of Soul, Tosh’s Hacienda and the Mercury Cafe.
Lauren Brooks, a junior from Fort Collins, has taught English in Nicaragua, volunteered in Ecuador and worked at a herbarium in Australia.
“But I was pretty ignorant about the poverty in the United States, particularly in Denver,” she said, piling loaves of donated bread at the rescue mission. “For me, this is emphasizing what people are actually doing about it.”
Sarah Davis, the DU senior, grew up in the suburbs north of Denver and drives to her job at a downtown law firm but doesn’t really know the city.
Seeing homeless children waiting for a doctor at the Stout Street Clinic and men gathering for dinner outside the rescue mission made her feel pity, anger, hope and guilt, she said.
“It’s been a little bit awkward with us and our bags and our warm gear to be out on the streets,” she said.
Lindsay Holman, a junior from Monterey, Calif., hadn’t taken a Denver city bus before this week.
“I’ve been in Denver for three years, but I’ve only connected with DU,” she said. “I feel kind of guilty about that.”
There is no exam after urban-immersion spring break, and no course credit. Students only have to soak up insight about a side of the city many people never experience.
“I think they’re in it for the right reasons – they’re standing outside freezing their butts off,” said Nicholas Cutforth, a DU professor who started an urban-studies minor.
“Many of them are going to end up in advocacy work, folks that want to make a difference.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
