UA Students Take Alternative Spring Break to Help Others

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Two groups of students from The University of Alabama Community Service Center opted not to spend their spring break on the beach, but they still had a good time helping others in community service projects that took them to California and Mexico.

As part of UA’s Alternative Spring Break program through the UA Community Service Center, two groups of UA students spent their March spring break time away from UA working in either Sacramento, Calif., or Xalapa, Mexico.

The students helped communities in the two locations by cleaning, painting, planting, landscaping, and a variety of other tasks designed to enhance the two locations and the lives of the people who live there.

Ten UA students went to River City in the Sacramento area to serve the community and they included: Michael Hallman of Tuscaloosa, Jeff Haas of Santa Fe, N.M., Suzy Chandler of Tuscaloosa, Josh Burford of Anniston, Ken Gaddy of Thomasville, Margaret-Anne Parks of Dothan, Barrett Lyle of Atlanta, Alex Perkins of Tuscaloosa, Josh Veazey of Deatsville and Juan Silvas of Euless, Texas.

UA students in the Sacramento area assisted with laying the groundwork for the Fremont Community Garden; painted kiosks, bridges and railings at the Discovery Museum of Science & Technology; cleaned, mulched, raked and planted in an area of William Land Park that had been neglected for over 15 years; planted a variety of trees in McKinley Park; and performed a survey of the museum located in the Old Sacramento historic district of the city.

The Sacramento participants included seven undergraduate students, one graduate student (Hallman) and two UA staff members (Burford and Gaddy). The students, who paid their own expenses for the weeklong trip, found they were rewarded for their time and effort. “By seeing the impact you make elsewhere, you take a sense of service and gratitude back home,” said Hallman who is also the graduate student coordinator for UA Alternative Spring Break.

The group of UA students who went to Mexico with Valerie Phillips, director of UA’s Community Service Center, to do volunteer work in Alternative Spring Break included: Wilson Boardman of Homewood, Wilesha Taylor of Fultondale, Kendall Smith of Homewood, Laura Dover of Jasper, Jon Sheets of Birmingham, Madelyn Jones of Enterprise, Paige Poole of Hueytown and Elizabeth Dumas of Spanish Fort.

These students organized an environmental community clean up with a governmental organization (Integral Development of the Family that works with marginalized families) to rid open fields and a small river of household garbage that had been disposed of in beautiful play areas. The students met with community members and leaders to brainstorm establishing a recycling center in the town of Naranjal that currently does not receive garbage pick up from the city.

Students also worked with the Mexican organization MATRACA to improve the lives of children who come from abusive homes and who live or work in the streets. In this effort, students assisted with compiling research and small home improvements for a house for homeless girls.

UA student Jeff Haas, who traveled to California in the program, said it was rewarding to show the community that others cared. Haas added that community service has been viewed as punishment for doing something wrong and that the UA students were trying to overcome that misconception and change attitudes about volunteerism.

UA students in the Alternative Spring Break Program have previously volunteered in Bayou LaBatre to help communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, at Ground Zero in New York City after 9/11, and in impoverished areas of Jamaica.

There will be an April exhibit “Because We Wanted To . Alternative Spring Break” in Ferguson Art Gallery featuring photographs from the Alternative Spring Break programs coordinated by the Community Service Center showing UA students and staff in Mexico and California.