What Spring Break Looked Like When We Chose Service Over the Beach

Every year our chapter does something a little countercultural for spring break — we skip the beach and serve instead. This year twelve of us drove to the Texas Gulf Coast to help rebuild homes still damaged from Hurricane Beryl. We framed walls, painted, hauled debris, and ate a lot of gas station snacks. But the moment that wrecked me was meeting Mr. Delgado, a 74-year-old man who'd been living in a FEMA trailer for nine months waiting for help. When we finished his porch he sat down in a lawn chair, looked out at his street, and just wept quietly. Nobody said anything. We just stood there with him. Matthew 25 hit different that week. "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." We weren't saving anyone. We were just showing up. Turns out that's enough.