For many college students, spring break is a time filled with exotic islands, sunbathing, and vacationing in palm tree-filled destinations. For some, however, the week off consists of waking up early to help less fortunate people in developing areas and positively impacting the community. 

One way for students to do this is through Alternative Spring Breaks.

ASB is a service-learning experience that allows students to participate in cultural, educational, recreational and reflective activities. ASB is sponsored by the Center for Student Leadership Ethics and Public Service.  

During spring break, approximately 300 students on campus will participate in service projects around the nation or abroad as a part of ASB.

Over break, these students will work for organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and medical clinics to address homelessness, environmental problems, and other issues facing the community.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of the ASB program is that trips are largely student driven since student team leaders carry out most of the responsibility for the projects. Team leaders facilitate service activities, guide team members, prepare meetings and Service Retreats prior to the trip to familiarize students who have never participated in service projects.  

Jeffrey Cooke, a senior in civil engineering, will travel to El Intendio, Nicaragua as a team leader to focus on water quality and providing clean drinking water in the small community.  

“El Intendio is a small community outside of a larger village,” Cooke said. “There are 150 people there and they have to travel four to six hours everyday to get to an improved water source.”  

Cooke and his fellow peers making the trip to El Intendio will help build washing stations and wells to allow access to clean water for the local residents.  

While they are abroad in Nicaragua, Mike Taylor, an ASB team leader and senior in biological sciences, will be serving in Guatemala where he too will focus on addressing health issues.

His group will be serving in El Remate where he and his peers will be educating local middle school children on the importance of dental hygiene.

“We are going to an indigenous population in a very poor socioeconomic area,” Taylor said. “It is a developing nation and they need our help when it comes to medical outreach.”

According to Cooke, the students in El Remate have a desperate need for dental plates, which are tooth replacements that are molded for missing teeth. Throughout the week, while the plates are being made, a local dentist will provide dental checkups for the middle school students.

Some students, however, will be traveling within the United States, like Elissa Trotman, a senior in political science. Trotman, also an ASB team leader, will be working with the Boys and Girls Club, a senior center, and the Hoonah Indian Association in Hoonah, Alaska.

Other groups traveling within the United States are the Washington, D.C. group, where the students will be focusing on addressing the homelessness problem of the area, as well as the group going to West Virginia on an Appalachia Service Project.

A group of students will even make the trip down to Louisiana for a habitat project for relief from Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged a large part of Louisiana and other southern states in 2005.  

This isn’t to say that ASB trips are devoid of any time for fun, however. In fact, while ASB trips are designed as service based trips, students are able to sight-see throughout the week and familiarize themselves with the area’s culture.

The Alaska group will spend a day in Juno and visit the Menehal Glacier.  Students participating in the Nicaragua trip will tour the capital and take a canopy tour of the rainforest.

For the most part, however, this is not why many choose to go on these trips. They make the decision to commit their week to service out of a desire to serve others. 

“I live at the beach, so I went home for spring break for two years,” Trotman said. “After going on the Gulf Coast trip my junior year I realized how important service really is. I want to inspire other students and show them how important service is and how it impacts other people.”  

Some students, like Cooke, realize how meaningful it is to experience different cultures around the world.  

“Participating in ASB is more meaningful than a traditional spring break trip,” Cooke said. “Service is a two-way relationship. Serving abroad shows you a different culture and how other people live and you understand how privileged you are.”