Noreen Prunier Volunteers in Atlanta During Fall Break Mission Trip

2013 Nov 15

For the second year in a row, Belmont's University Ministries office led a team of students on a "Fall Break Plunge," a three-day mission trip and community service project Oct. 12-14. The Plunge is an allusion to the University's annual "immersion" spring break trip program, which is designed to give students the chance to be immersed in various destinations, experiencing God's work in a number of contexts. The Plunge enables participants to get a taste of what a week-long mission trip could be.

This year the Plunge found Merrick native Noreen Prunier, along with 19 other students and University Ministries Director of Outreach Micah Weedman, going to downtown Atlanta for Fall Break. The team stayed in Grant Park and worked with the Medici Project, an organization that designs and hosts alternative break trips for college students.

"For all of the trips we sponsor, we take a broad spectrum approach that is shaped by the locations we go," Weedman said. "While in Atlanta, we wanted to do Atlanta-centric work. That included spending time with a homeless ministry in one of the city's abandoned urban neighborhoods and volunteering with one of Atlanta's most successful urban gardens that distributes the food it grows to low income families in the community."

In addition, the team attended Sunday worship services at a nearby church with an intentionally diverse, interracial congregation and visited the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in the Sweet Auburn district, providing a first-hand perspective on ground zero of the Civil Rights movement. The team also heard a presentation by a local social entrepreneur with Be Remedy, an organization that uses Twitter to connect people with resources with those who have specific needs, and they volunteered to sort books for Books for Africa, a nonprofit that collects, sorts, ships and distributes donated textbooks to the children of Africa.