University Students Volunteer Through Alternative Spring Break
by Luisa Anderson

One-hundred-and-fifty University of Oregon students will participate in service learning trips through Alternative Spring Break. Trip locations this year range from Mckenzie River, Oregon, to San Jose del Sur, Nicaragua. Alternative Break is offering its first summer trip where students will travel to Panama to work a medical clinic.

The program is sponsored by the Holden Leadership Service Learning program, and is open to all University students. The program gives students the opportunity to gain leadership skills through community learning.

“The main purpose of is to develop students as leaders and citizens of a community,” said Eric Boggs, the Director and Program Coordinator. “Learning how they can both give and grow from these experiences.”

Boggs says that the program benefits both students and the communities they travel to because trips are planned around their community impact and the sustainability of their projects.

Students and community members can pitch trip ideas, which are then researched and developed by the Alternative Breaks Committee comprised of University students. Each year, the program offers up to 20 student lead trips during academic break periods. Total trip costs vary based on location, food and lodging, and transportation, but travel grants can be offered to help offset the fees.

Economics student James Lancaster got involved in the program because he wanted to volunteer his spring break and be able to have an experience to look back on.

“We learned about the issue of our failing public education system,” said Lancaster, who participated in the Education, Politics, and Reform trip in Washington D.C. during 2011. “We also got to work with kids with learning disabilities and other problems.”

Like Lancaster, many Alternative Break participants seek other ways to get involved in leadership activities through the Holden Leadership Center.

In recent years, co-curricular programs at Universities throughout the country have been growing, and international service learning trips have become more popular.

“…These co-curricular opportunities have been incredibly transformative,” Boggs said. “[It] has the ability to step outside the classroom, and look at real world opportunities and grapple with them there”