Philanthropic students eager to give back to communities across America this spring break are selling grilled cheese sandwiches on Webster Ave., running bake sales in Novack Cafe and continuing to brainstorm fundraising events.
Eight service-oriented spring break trips will depart this year, to New Orleans; Biloxi, Mississippi; Caretta, West Virginia; the Lakota Nation at the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in South Dakota; Washington, D.C. and the Dominican Republic. The volunteer work on the different trips spans everything from building houses to teaching HIV prevention.
The Tucker Foundation and the Provost's Office sponsor a handful of Alternative Spring Break trips annually, but require student participants to provide partial funding. Students must provide $500 domestic trips and a few thousand dollars for international trips.
The trips aim to produce sustainable changes in the communities they visit. Participants in the New Orleans trip will work on a mapping program for residents to use as a resource.
"Houses are categorized from untouched and uninhabitable to lived in and renovated, with various categories in between," trip co-leader Daniel Killeen '09 said. "It's meant to be an open source for residents to see how their community is developing and redeveloping."
Student volunteers will teach residents to update the program themselves so they can continue utilizing the resource after the trip has left. Tuck School of Business professor Quintus Jett developed the program.
In the Dominican Republic, students will help to construct a community center, according to Zak Kaufman '08.
"We're not going to be building it for them; we'll be building it with them," Kaufman said.
Alternative Spring Break trips usually begin as student proposals to the Tucker Foundation, according to Conor Hackett '07, the AmeriCorps VISTA member of the Tucker Foundation. The Tucker Foundation accepts trips for their first year with the possibility of renewal for the following three years if they prove effective and feasible.
Inspired by a different alternative spring break organization, Jiles Pourier '08 developed the Lakota Nation project to bring help close to his home in South Dakota.
"My sophomore year, I did an alternative spring break with United Way," he said. "After that I really wanted to give back to my own community."
Competition among students to participate in the trips surprised many of the organizers, according to Elise Braunschweig '08, co-leader of the Dominican Republic trip.
Choosing nine additional participants from the 120 applicants for his trip was "probably the hardest thing I've done at Dartmouth," Kaufman said.
Attempts to raise money for the trips has been met with mixed success.
"The sales are pretty good right now, but there's a lot of competition," said Lucy Liu '09, co-leader of the West Virginia trip, of her bakesale fundraising efforts.
The Dominican Republic trip, the only international trip this year, has fulfilled its fundraising requirement through two Haitian art sales last spring and summer, Kaufman said.
Most trip participants hope to surpass the fundraising requirements of the Tucker Foundation in order to accomodate for additional purchases such as tools and other needed items, Killeen said.
In addition to their charitable intentions, the trips additionally tend to be educational and fun for the volunteers themselves, according to Hackett.
"Students come out of the program having a lot more fun than they anticipated, and most students come out of it with a better understanding of themselves and of national issues," he said.
For some, participating in a trip is an opportunity to embrace new experiences.
"It's a good opportunity to get out of the Dartmouth bubble," said Caroline Ward '11, who will be going to West Virginia.
In the months leading up to spring break, participants in each trip meet weekly to plan and learn about the area they will be visiting. Trip participants read a book on the area over winter break and trip leaders often bring in lecturers and guest speakers to talk to the participants.
"We work on getting to know each other and talk about what to expect," Killeen said. "A lot of people don't anticipate the emotional fatigue that can happen."
Although the majority of Tucker Foundation trips take place during spring break, the Tucker Foundation also ran a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi this winter. Brian Howe '10, who led the trip after going to New Orleans the previous spring, said the most important thing for those participating in trips was to go in without preconceived ideas.
"If you keep an open mind, I think the experience means a lot more," he said.
