Since 1997, the Bennion Community Service Center has offered opportunities for students at the U to volunteer. During Spring and Fall Breaks, the Bennion Center and the Center for Student Wellness offer students a chance to spend a week volunteering and learning about ways to help society.
ASUU subsidies lower the cost of the trips for students. Because of an increase in applications for alternative breaks last spring, four new trips were added for the 2013 Fall Break in addition to the Environmental Stewardship trip.
The five trips were the Urban Environmentalism in Portland, Ore.; Environmental Stewardship at the Rio Mesa Center in southern Utah; Identity and Environmental Exploration in the San Rafael Swell, also in southern Utah; Homelessness and Hunger in Seattle, Wash.; and Health in the Aging Population in St. George, Utah.
Most trips consist of 10 students, one site leader and one staff partner. The site leader is a U student and the staff partner is any staff member from around campus. One exception is the Rio Mesa trip, which takes about 30 students because there is more space for student volunteers.
Lacey Holmes, public relations coordinator for the Bennion Center, said these trips give students a greater desire to volunteer in their community. On these alternative breaks, students learn and apply their knowledge to their volunteering activities.
“We always say our unofficial saying is that alternative breaks last a week, but the experience lasts a life time,” Holmes said.
Stephanie Cooper, a senior in biology and the Alternative Breaks chair, was a site leader for Animal Advocacy and Rehabilitation, a Spring Break trip that went to Kanab, Utah. Cooper said a wide variety of students go on these trips and they go with people they have never met and reflect and discuss their experiences.
“It was amazing,” Cooper said. “That’s why I’m still here.”