The University of Mary Washington is co-sponsoring a campus sustainability event to encourage faculty, staff and students to donate old or unwanted clothing and household items. “Drop N’ Go!” a collaboration with the Rappahannock Goodwill Industries (RGI), began Thursday, April 25 and will continue through Saturday, May 4.

UMW will collect clothes and household items from residence halls in its “Drop N’ Go!” donation drive.

“Our goal is to get students to understand the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle,” said Joni Wilson, UMW’s director of landscape and grounds.

Bins for the donations will be provided in all residence hall lobbies, Seacobeck Hall, the Fitness Center, Facilities Services and in Lee Hall.

“We’ve done something similar in past years,” said Chris Porter, director of residence life and commuter student services. “But this is the first time we’ve approached the program as partners to increase the likelihood of success.”

Rappahannock Goodwill Industries (RGI) operates 10 stores, one outlet, a commercial laundry, contract custodial and administrative services, three job help centers, and numerous attended donation centers in the city of Fredericksburg and a 12-county region in Virginia. RGI’s mission is to provide to people with barriers to employment – particularly those with disabilities – an array of quality vocational and educational services so that they can work most independently.

For more information about the drive, contact Chris Porter at (540) 654-1058.

For 10 University of Mary Washington students, Spring Break felt more like winter. The group traveled to Quebec, Canada – where the average high in March is zero degrees Celsius – as part of a weeklong faculty-led study abroad trip.

Students from various levels of French embarked on their journey on Friday, March 1, and reached Canadian French culture after a two-hour plane ride.

Professor Scott Powers and a group of students explore Montreal’s biodome as part of their study abroad trip.

“It’s pretty incredible that French has been preserved in one province in Canada for hundreds of years,” said Sarah Lynch, a sophomore psychology major. Quebec, located in east-central Canada, is the only Canadian province with French as the single official language.

The trip to Quebec, led by Associate Professor of French Scott Powers, was one of five faculty-led study abroad opportunities during Spring Break, including Belize, Guatemala, Germany, Scotland and Ireland. The trips offer students experiences beyond the foreign language classroom – a complete linguistic, cultural and culinary immersion.

“Getting an opportunity to speak French in the real world let me see how much I really had learned,” said sophomore international affairs major Lauren Malecki. “If I mispronounced something many of the locals would correct me.”

Students made maple sugar candy during one of their excursions in Quebec.

Students practiced French while ordering food, interacting with locals and on tours of cultural and historic sites. They saw a theatre performance in RÉSO, one of the largest underground cities in the world, ate a four-course meal at the Parliament of Quebec, attended a class at the University of Montreal and spent an evening at winter festival.

“It’s surprising that right around the corner we can have a completely different cultural experience,” said Meredith Stone, a sophomore geography major.

The trip also allowed students to gain experiential learning credit, a graduation requirement at UMW designed to challenge students to go outside of the bounds of the typical classroom.

Powers hopes that he will be able to take another group of students to Quebec next spring.

“I think the trip made students feel more comfortable with speaking to people in French,” he said. “In a couple of days of being here your inhibitions melt away.”