Spring break awakens service spirit for Rice students
Rice students embark on trips to serve others

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

More than 140 Rice University students and eight staff members will leave this weekend for 11 Alternative Spring Break (ASB) service trips advised by the university’s Community Involvement Center (CIC). They will spend their spring break, Feb. 27 to March 7, helping others through various activities, including building houses for HandsOn New Orleans, mentoring young students and reading to the blind.

	Students work on last year’s Alternative Spring Break project. This year students will be helping others through various activities, including building houses for HandsOn New Orleans, mentoring young students and reading to the blind.

“To become active and engaged citizens in the future, students need to understand the world and people around them now,” said Mac Griswold, director of the CIC. “The Alternative Spring Break model helps them achieve this by encouraging students to combine direct interaction with community members with critical analysis, both inside and outside the classroom, of pressing social issues.”

The Rice students will perform short-term projects in partnership with community agencies and learn about issues such as literacy, poverty, racism, hunger, homelessness and the environment at sites ranging from Watsonville, Calif., to Boston.

“The students and staff members who chose to lead and participate in this year’s Alternative Spring Break trips are making a substantial contribution to the communities they are serving,” Griswold said. “Beyond the direct service they will provide, the participants have also learned about the social issue they will be addressing and have been fundraising to support their trips and nonprofit partner organizations.”

The ASB program aims to involve college students in community-based service projects and give them opportunities to learn about the problems faced by members of communities with whom they otherwise may have had little or no direct contact.

The students will showcase pictures and stories from their trips from 4 to 6 p.m. March 30 in Sammy’s located in the Rice Memorial Center.