A group of Maryland college students are making their home at Franklinton Center at Bricks for Spring Break this week, to do something different with their holiday.

The 20 students from Hood College, a private college in Frederick, Md., are staying at Franklinton through this week. Their work includes doing exterior renovation to the center's administration building and pool, as well as going out to area schools and speaking with students.

Tuesday, many of the Hood students chipping away old paint and coating the administration building said they came to Franklinton for an opportunity to know their fellow students better.

As she swept up paint chips on the building's front steps, Hilary Lawch, 18, of Bethesda, Md., said she came to Franklinton Center for Spring Break because she thought it would be "a great opportunity to bond with classmates I haven't met before."

While painting on some finishing touches to an outside wall, Joe Hood, 22, from Frederick, Md., said this was his first Spring Break spent doing community service. Like Lawch, Hood said it was a good opportunity for him to meet his classmates.

Although he only has a five-minute commute to Hood's campus, he said the trip to Franklinton is "the best of both worlds" for him. It allows him to do community service, while getting to know his classmates better all in the same trip.

As she used a roller to apply white paint to one of the building's walls, Junghyun Lee, 23, an exchange student from South Korea, said the Franklinton trip has been "pretty fun" so far.

"I wanted to meet people, (and) I never hung out with (people of) different races" before, Lee added.

Jacob Ausherman, 18, of Laurel, Md., said he came to Franklinton because he "thought it'd be fun, to know I'm doing a good job instead of staying home and not doing anything" over Spring Break.

While he was edging a sidewalk, Dr. Ted Chase, Hood's associate dean of students, said that having the students and faculty work together, and talking while they're doing it, helps bring them together and learn more about being part of a community. And, to him, it acts as a sort of "getaway" for students and Hood staff.

"It is a getaway in many respects. (It) recharges some of those human batteries, by doing things together you wouldn't typically do," like renovating a building's exterior, Chase said.

For Hood's track team coach Brent Ayer, it really is a form of getaway. He said that coming to Franklinton gives him a week off from his coaching responsibilities, as well as his second full-time job as a congressional staffer.

Though the Franklinton Center helped rebuild areas of Edgecombe County after Hurricane Floyd hit in September 1999, the Rev. Ervin Milton, the center's executive director, said the work the Hood students are doing "helps out" with the operation of the center.

"It helps out because as a non-profit organization, we're (often) working on a shoe-string budget and can't always afford" to have professionals paint and maintain the buildings of the more the nearly 160-year-old property.

By treating their work like they would while working on their own home, Chase added that students could leave with a sense of "somebody (knowing) I was here" at Franklinton.

Along with the maintenance work on the administration building and its pool, some of the Hood students spoke to Phillips Middle School students Tuesday. They'll also speak to Phillips students again today and to students in Halifax County Thursday.

The Rev. Beth O'Malley, dean of Hood College's chapel, said the Franklinton Center was a "natural place for us to bring students" because of its work in poverty and justice issues, as well as its "rich history" of educating teachers and other area residents.

She also noted that the center's history, as a slave trading post and plantation dating back to the 1850s, and the county's rural setting puts the students in an environment many of them haven't been in before.

Chase said that while the students had read about slavery in their history books, coming to the South and actually being on a former plantation "brings (that) history to life" and grants them a new perspective on their learning.

Another reason the school and the center agreed to work together for a service-minded Spring Break trip is because they are both affiliate institutions of the United Church of Christ, O'Malley said.

While they continue their community service this week, the Hood students didn't have to wait long before they were treated to a special concert.

Monday night, a student gospel choir from Michigan State University performed at the Franklinton Center for the students and the community.

Lawch said she thought the Michigan State choir's performance Monday night was "beautiful," and that it was "really interesting" getting to talk with some of the 80 choir members afterwards.

O'Malley noted that while most of the Hood and Michigan State students grew up in different metropolitan areas, they also seemed to "realize how much they have in common" despite geographical and cultural differences.

This Spring Break session could begin a collaboration between the school and Franklinton. Chase noted that the school would look into hosting some classes at the center, as well as offer research opportunities for professors and graduate students at Hood.