Alternative spring break options thriving at UW-Madison

During the 2006 spring break from March 13-19, more than 100 UW–Madison students will give their time to 11 culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged communities in the United States.

The Alternative Breaks program, now in its 16th year, provides students with an opportunity to participate in volunteer and educational trips in a wide range of geographic locales. These affordable one-week trips, which range in price from $90 to $270, are open to currently registered UW–Madison students.

“The trips are an eye-opening experience,” says Chris Konieczka, Alternative Breaks Director. “They give students the opportunity to experience another world for a short time.”

Short-term volunteering has become increasingly popular with college students. “They require low time commitment and students feel like they’ve made a difference,” says Ann Dingman, community service coordinator at the Morgridge Center for Public Service. “You can see the difference when you help build a house, whereas you need to assume the impact when you tutor a child.”

Since 1990, the Alternative Breaks Committee, part of the Wisconsin Union Directorate, has sponsored intercession trips. “We arrange accommodation, transportation and connect student participants with the host organization,” says Konieczka. “But we operate on a cooperative leadership model, so there’s no assigned trip leader.”

Student volunteers share responsibilities on the trip, including planning the route to their destinations, cooking meals, recording the finances and coordinating site projects. The trips afford students the rare chance to venture outside of Madison and explore unfamiliar environments in ways that make a positive difference.

In one upcoming example, 10 students will travel to the Crescent House, a shelter in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. “The winds and flooding caused by Katrina caused a gas explosion,” says Konieczka. “We are going to rebuild, clean out the building and work with children’s program displaced by the storm.”

Another group of volunteers will drive 26 hours and 1,600 miles to San Juan, Texas, a Mexican-American border town. Student participants will connect residents of this migrant farm community with La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), a grassroots legal service that fights for the needs of low-income and immigrant families.

“We spend half the time making residents aware of the great resources out there,” says Konieczka. “And the rest of the time we build houses for families.”

Other Spring breaks include:

— Boston, Mass: Service work at a homeless shelter;

— Florida Everglades National Park: Invasive species removal and tree planting;

— Sky Island Alliance, Ariz.: Trial restoration, road removal and species monitoring;

— Memphis, Tenn.: Collaboration with the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, planting community gardens, registering voters, and preparing meals;

— Denver, Colo.: Students will work with teach skills and academics to GED students at the Denver Rescue Mission and the Denver Third Way Center;

— Eagle Butte, S.D.: Work with the Cheyenne River Youth Project and run activities for Native American children on a reservation;

— Teach For America North Carolina: Live and work with TFA corps members;

— Cumberland Island, Ga. Camp: Restore and build hiking trails on the island;

— Cranks, Ky.: Assist the Cranks Creek Survival Center with house building and food distribution.