While most University of Alabama students rush to get home for the holidays, 21 students will travel with the Community Service Center on an alternative break to give back to the people of New Orleans, La.
Libby Loveless, the director of the alternative break at the Community Service Center, said the group will spend Dec. 16-19 mentoring children through Head Start programs and possibly doing Hurricane Isaac disaster relief work.
“We have a lot of freshman enthusiasm but generally a mixed group of people,” Loveless said. “We mostly attract people who are very enthusiastic about service.”
The Community Service Center offers alternative break trips year-round, including an international trip at the end of the spring semester. Two of the students involved are receiving full scholarships to pay for the trip through UA Away, but every other student will pay his or her own way, Loveless said. Most of the domestic trips are done in the Southeast to cut down on costs, she said.
Loveless said she hopes the programs are an opportunity for students to get out of Tuscaloosa and get to know other places, especially for out-of-state students who might not get to leave Tuscaloosa very often.
Katie Love, a sophomore majoring in psychology, has been on two trips, including one to Baldwin County, Ala., where she helped Habitat for Humanity almost completely finish a house in one week. She said the positive and helpful attitudes of the people they worked with helped her adapt.
“I was nervous about getting on the job site to build a house because I had never done anything like that before,” Love said, “But the workers there made it a learning experience and made sure that everyone was involved in whatever capacity they felt comfortable in.”
Loveless said the trips also provide students with an opportunity to form friendships with fellow students because of the different environment.
“Getting to do that work together and spending time together really bonds you as a group,” she said. “I’ve never had a student not bond with the group.”
The Community Service Center works to provide students with a variety of choices of where they can spend their alternative break, Loveless said. This is the first time the group will travel to New Orleans. Loveless hopes students see these trips as an opportunity to learn about new places.
“It’s an educational thing, but it also sparks an interest in students to do more volunteer work in the future,” she said.
