A different way to spend Spring Break

By Elizabeth Cone
Staff Writer

Spring break. Just one week away. What are your plans? Let me guess. You’re probably going to some beach with a huge group of people. It seems like so many people’s Spring Break plans consist of going to Florida, stocking up on alcohol, drinking it and then going to some crazy club. And repeat this agenda daily for the entire week.
I have ever been to Panama City or Daytona or Key West for Spring Break. But I’m a college kid, and I know what college kids do! People always come back with photos of girls in bikinis and guys with tans. There’s almost always a crazy club picture. And then there’s that one story-”the Spring Break story.” Everyone who went on the trip tells the story to everyone who didn’t go. Last year some of my friends won wet t-shirt contests. That was their story.
I asked my friend Keri what she was going to do over Spring Break this year. She’s not taking the average Spring Break excursion. Instead of Panama City, she’s going to the Dominican Republic for eight days to teach children in an orphanage how to speak English. Keri is going to this country located in the West Indies through a program called Orphanage Outreach. This program is based in Scottsdale, Arizona and selects 40 college students from all over the country to spend their spring break volunteering. I have to give Keri a hand for that. She is probably the only friend of mine who would spend her Spring Break like that.she’s probably the only one who would even think of spending it like that.
Have you ever heard of Alternative Spring Break (ASB)? It’s an organization ran by students. The organization places students in volunteer sites across the country during their entire Spring Break. Students who participate in ASB range in years and majors. These students work with two site leaders, and they work with a volunteer agency to focus on a variety of social issues, like hunger, homelessness, rural poverty, HIV/AIDS and racism. This program’s purpose is to encourage students to be more aware of the world around them and to be more motivated to impact the world through volunteerism. Over 20,000 students involved with ASB sacrifice the usual break to do something to make a difference in our world.
USA Today had an article in its February 7 issue about college kids doing positive things during spring break. The article featured a group of 15 college classmates in Miami. The article explained that for the past couple of Spring Breaks, this group of students “partied hearty, drinking and clubbing from Panama City to Cancun.” In the wake of September 11, the students decided to trade in their usual Spring Break and spend a week volunteering at New York City’s Ground Zero.
I think ASB’s purpose, to make college students aware of the world around them and to motivate them to make an impact on this world, is great. We should be aware of the world around us. We should also want to make differences in the world every opportunity we get. We should be like the members of ASB, more like the fifteen college students in Miami and more like Keri and realize Spring Break is the perfect opportunity to help make a difference in the world. I think the world needs more Keri’s.
After all, when it’s all said and done and Spring Break is over and we come back to school on April 1st, what Spring Break story do you want to tell?

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 15 2002. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry