While most freshmen will be enjoying their last free summer this year, Aaron Ebner will be hard at work. Instead of hitting the beach and partying with his friends from home, Ebner will spend a little over a month in Tanzania, Africa, volunteering at an orphanage.
Having done volunteer work before in places like Honduras and Ecuador, Ebner knew this was something that would interest him when he found Cross Cultural Solutions on the Web.
However, this time he decided that dedicating himself was not enough — he needed to donate money as well.
In order to do this, the international affairs major plans to collect used books from Northeastern students at the end of the quarter to sell back to the university and then donate the money to the orphanage.
“I just thought that maybe I could do more here,” Ebner said. “I was trying to think of some way I could fundraise and this just popped in my head and so I decided to go with it.”
Though he does not know what kind of response he is going to get from students, he plans on putting up fliers and boxes in some of the dorms to encourage people to pitch in.
While Ebner enjoys doing volunteer work in general, as he started helping his father with medical work when he was 15 years old, he particularly likes working with kids.
“I think you appreciate what you have a lot more. You see kids who are working 12 hours a day in a field when they would be happy just to study. It kind of makes me want to try harder,” he said.
Ebner is excited to see how his fundraising project turns out. He knows that with the current problems in East Africa there’s a slight chance he might not get to go.
“They’re pretty confident that it’s still going to happen,” he said. “Even if I don’t go the money is still going to go there, but hopefully I’ll be able to go.”
If all goes according to plan, however, Ebner plans to head to Tanzania with his donation on July 13 with a group of people that he does not know.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people so far,” he said. Hopefully, if everything works out, maybe I’ll do it next fall or next spring, maybe make it a little bigger if it’s successful.”
