March 3, the first Sunday of spring break, the Stockdale Fellows were involved in a traffic accident involving their chartered bus and three other vehicles. In order to avoid a collision, the bus slid into the ditch off of I-55, keeping the 29 Monmouth College students and their advisor, Jake McLean, safe from injury.
Once the bus was landed in the snowy ditch, an Illinois state trooper stopped to assist. In a chain reaction, the trooper’s vehicle was hit by another car and then that car was hit.
Alex Cutright, a sophomore member of Stockdale Fellows sprang into action. Cutright administered first aid to a woman in the vehicle that hit the trooper, stopping the bleeding of a “nasty gash” on her forehead. Cutright was named a hero by fellow students on the bus.
Reflecting on the incident, Jake McLean said “He came up to me and said, ‘Jake, I need to get off the bus.’ I hesitated, but then he said, ‘It’s my job.’”
For the three years since the Stockdale Fellows program’s founding, the students selected for the prestigious leadership cohort attend an “alternative spring break.” Instead of lounging on the beach, these student leaders get to work. Last year and this year, the group volunteered their break with Living Lands and Waters, cleaning up the Mississippi River and surrounding area. They have no plans to stop giving back anytime soon.
Traveling to Memphis, Tennessee, the group collected 28,444 pounds of trash from the Mississippi this year alone, mostly in the McKellar Lake area. The students worked from 9AM to 4PM form Monday to Thursday in frigid temperatures. Their work included time on jon boats and walking around the muddy beaches of the Mississippi and Lake McKellar to collect an astounding amount of liter. Many of the students admit that the service experience was eye-opening.
“It was heartbreaking to see all that trash in the water,” said Shannon Wilbourne (‘22) of Chicago. “Fixing the problem requires the continued efforts of organizations like Living Lands and Waters to raise awareness and provide opportunities to affect change, but it also demands our everyday participation. We must be intentional with how we dispose of trash and remember that no action is inconsequential.”
Grant Miller (‘22) of Aurora, Colorado reflected: “I was sobered and disappointed by the trash in the water, but not necessarily surprised. Environmental issues are huge today, and solving a problem like this completely is likely impossible. But rather than be disappointed by our inability to control these virtually-unsolvable problems, communities should do what they can to control as many environmental issues as they can, because the problem does not need to be fully solved for our societies to live in a cleaner, safer world.”
Emma Hildebrand
Features Editor