Students enrolled at the University of Delaware are spending spring break in Jones County, repairing homes and buildings as the community continues to recover from Hurricane Florence. Photo by Junious Smith III / Neuse News

TRENTON — For a group of students up north, Eastern North Carolina was the ideal place to spend spring break.

Dozens of students from the University of Delaware teamed up with the Craven County-based Mission Xtreme in order to repair homes and businesses in Jones County damaged by Hurricane Florence. Trenton Mayor Darlene Spivey said the students are doing numerous tasks throughout the week such as hanging sheet rock, painting and cleaning yards as the area continues to recover from Florence.

“They were contacted by (Mission Xtreme director) Scott Murphy and they took the opportunity to assist,” Spivey said. “It was very uplifting and inspiring to us — people who don’t even know us are trying to help through the devastation. I’m proud of the young people and it says a lot about the University of Delaware.”

Murphy said his organization is working on headquarters in Lenoir and Pamlico County as well, doing its part in neighboring areas.

“We hope to bring restorations to the wonderful area of Jones County,” Murphy said. “I grew up in Cove City and we worked on homes during Matthew, making sure we got to a lot of the rural areas. There are places that don’t get the resources like some of the bigger cities, but they need recovery as well.”

The program which brought the Delaware students together is called “UDAB,” short for “University of Delaware Alternative Break.” Matt Heebner, a junior mechanical engineer major, said there are about 30 different types of groups in the UDAB program set to help others across the nation in various areas. 

“We’ve got groups who help out the homeless, some who do special needs and two groups do disaster relief — one in North Carolina and one in Florida,” Heebner said. “This is 100 percent voluntary and the students get no credit. All 35 of us could’ve gone to places like Cancun and California for spring break, but we wanted to come to Trenton and New Bern to lend a helping hand.”

Heebner said the group found chemistry almost immediately, which helped in the process.

“None of us really knew each other beforehand,” Heebner said. “We had a couple of meetings before we got here, but we had to learn each other’s personalities and come together. It’s a privelege to be able to work with everyone here and it’s inspiring to get the experience with Mr. Murphy, someone who has made a career out of service.”

Heebner has volunteered in North Carolina before, especially during Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Most of the other students, like junior nursing major Carly Negrelli, hadn’t seen the Tar Heel State, but said she saw the devastation on television and wanted to spring into action.

“The news was the initial blow, but in the pre-departure meetings, we got an idea of what to expect,” Negrelli said. “A lot of times, you’ll have media coverage in an area after natural disasters and it lasts for about a week. For us, we wanted to go out to places that need help and may have been forgotten — natural disasters are something we’ve all experienced in one way or another and we wanted to help wherever we could.”

Murphy said this won’t be the only time Jones County will receive assistance.

This is not going to be a short-term project,” “We’re trying to be here for a good three to four years, especially when there’s the possibility of other storms in the future. We’ve got to be prepared.”

For more information about Mission Xtreme or if you would to donate, go to mxnetwork.org.