UND students to travel rural North Dakota on spring break "Stone Soup Tour"

While many other students head to the beach March 14-18 for a spring break, one group of UND students will learn about rural North Dakota and offer to be of help during the first-of-its-kind “Stone Soup Bus Tour.”

The tour is named after a UND Center for Community Engagement program, which sponsored and organized the tour. The program, which includes a fund to support UND community-based projects and an annual community-university awards program, uses the stone soup theme from the old folk tale of travelers who start a soup with a stone and convince villagers to contribute what they can.

Students enrolled in the service-learning course called Service and Rural Communities will leave Grand Forks Monday with a stop in Bismarck to meet North Dakota First Lady Betsy Dalrymple and view the legislative process, then on to Hettinger, Hazen, New Town, Tioga, Rugby, and Ft. Totten, before returning home March 18.

The course is taught by Lana Rakow, director of the Center for Community Engagement and professor of communication, and Sarah McKenzie, a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) member and service-learning coordinator at the Center. Travel support for the course has been provided by private donations to the Stone Soup Fund.

Video of the tour across North Dakota and student blogs about their experiences can be followed on the UND web site.

— Lana Rakow, professor and director, Center for Community Engagement, 777-0675 or 777-2287, lanarakow@mail.und.edu.