Hello! My name is Clare Caulfield, a sophomore math major, and this is my first ABST. One of the four pillars of every ABST trip is service. Today was our first day of it. While yesterday we visited a popular museum in Tucson, today we visited a community center. In the morning, we spent time with two classrooms of 3 to 5 year olds. They welcomed us with open arms and their innocence and excitement lit up our whole group. For lunch, we had famous Sonoran Hot Dogs with all the work. Then we headed back to the center where we spent the afternoon priming the fence of the children’s playground for a fresh coat of paint.

While we have reserved this week of our Spring Break to serve others in a unique fashion, service should not be something special we only do once a year on a big trip. Traveling across the country to visit classrooms and help paint fences is all well and good. However, service needs to be a major part of everyday life. Daily choosing to put others before ourselves disciplines our will and teaches us to be selfless. The habit of service is not in the big, flashy weeklong trips. It is built in the common, ordinary acts of grabbing a friend’s book bag or filling another’s water bottle.