Spring Break Appalachia trip brings out the best

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
March 29, 2006

In my MTV-saturated youth, I had a very distinct image of what college Spring Break would be like. Exotic locales, exotic drinks and exotic women were all to be expected; however, the drinks and the women didn’t necessarily have to be exotic, as long as they were alcoholic. The drinks, not the women. Although, in many cases, it seemed to be both the drinks and the women. And bikinis.

Sophomore Michelle Talisesky, senior Chrissy Malizzia and junior Amy Nickerson
help Carroll the Carpenter construct a brand-new roof. Photo courtesy of Christina McCarthy

Thus, it’s understandable to me why many newbies on this year’s Project Appalachia crew (myself included) had doubts about making the 12-hour van-ride to Harlan, Ky. to participate in a service trip involving eight-hour work days. Nothing against service, but since most of us grew up with the MTV image embedded in our consciousness, it’s not exactly what comes to mind when you think of a Spring Break getaway.

Now that the trip has come and gone, I can say that going to Harlan was not just an awesome way to spend spring break, but probably also one of the coolest experiences of my life so far. Coming full circle, this seems to be another sentiment shared by many of this year’s Appalachia virgins.

During the course of the year, the trip’s coordinators, senior Ilona Kane and juniors Lisa Angelucci and James Carcilli, seemed to have problems explaining the trip’s greatness to the rest of us. They told us the basics: Project Appalachia is a service trip where you build houses in the Appalachia region, one of the most economically strapped areas in America. Beyond that, they couldn’t quite put into words why the trip was such a great experience. The reason: often times, in the best of times, experience transcends words. Throughout the year, however, they did rave about the “Harlan Glow.”

I know—it sounds sort of creepy. However, having gone on the trip myself, I assure you that it’s actually a pretty cool thing. In fact, it seems to me that the best way to describe the greatness of Project Appalachia is to define this so-called “Harlan Glow.”

It’s one of those neat anomalies that is completely different for each individual yet exactly the same (i.e. happiness). When I say I’m going to define the “Harlan Glow,” there’s no way I can give the be-all, end-all Webster’s definition of it. Instead, it’ll probably be more along the lines of the Wikipedia version.

Here it goes: the “Harlan Glow” is the feeling you get when you see selflessness in action, and participate it in yourself. It’s 40 people giving up their vacation, without believing they’ve given anything up at all, and knowing they’ve come out ahead. It’s literally putting a roof over a family’s head (as 15 of us did), or doing unglamorous but necessary work like carting off trash, digging up rocks, breaking concrete and leveling yards (as the other 25 of us did).

It’s not complaining about peanut butter and jelly, even though you have to eat it every day for a week. It’s making trips to Wal-Mart the best time you ever had, having conversations with friendly locals everywhere you go and realizing this is what your life is missing.

The “Glow” is the look on the faces of ever member in your crew when they discover that the apartment complex you’ve dedicated two days to cleaning up and painting is going to benefit mentally handicapped citizens who wish to live on their own and have a sense of identity.

It’s the adrenaline you feel when running into the frigid Badbranch Falls, and it’s the solitary peace you feel when you hike up a mountain and admire the beautiful Kentucky landscape. It’s sleeping in one room with 40 people and treating it like a week-long sleepover. It’s waking up in the morning and waiting in a 20-person line for two bathrooms and not minding at all.

It’s a characteristic in people that makes them unique; it’s something that’s in all of us that just gets brought out on Project Appalachia. For example, sophomore Jordan Feld displayed it when he woke up early every day to act as the groups’ humorous alarm clock, running around in his boxers shooting cap guns.

The “Glow” is sitting around a camp fire on a beautiful night and witnessing a bawdy group mesmerized into silence by junior Jim Feighan’s rendition of the Beatles’ song “Blackbird.”

It’s when holding a ball of yarn dubbed “the warm fuzzy” gives you goose bumps and makes you babble like a crazy person. It’s the incredible sadness you feel when the week’s over, and you no longer get to live with people who are essentially a week or so removed from being strangers.

The “Harlan Glow” is all of these things, and yet, in actuality, it’s none of these things. It’s really indescribable. In the end, it would seem the “Glow” is a lot like each member of the Breakfast Club—a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Maybe not, but I think you get where I’m going with this.

viscof1@lasalle.edu