By MEG SOMMERFELD
they are also gaining ground among students looking for a new way to spend their summer vacations, spring breaks, and other leisure time.
One of the largest coordinators of "alternative" spring-break programs is the non-profit organization Break Away, which was established in 1991 by two Vanderbilt University students. Twelve universities participated the first year; today Break Away has 70 member universities, which send 4,300 students on community-service expeditions each year. The group, which has its headquarters in Tallahassee, Fla., estimates that an additional 20,000 students participate in similar programs offered by other universities.
Break Away activities are diverse. Students might tutor migrant farm workers in Florida, register voters in rural Mississippi, or help children paint murals in Rhode Island. Volunteers typically travel to a community during their spring break and sleep on floors at community centers or stay with host families. Most programs charge about $200 per participant, but many universities subsidize the programs or students hold fund-raising events to subsidize the fees.
"We are trying to develop active citizens, people who will take the community into account when they are making decisions in their personal lives, from 'What kind of car am I going to buy?' to 'How am I treating the environment?' to 'How am I going to vote?,'" says Dan McCabe, Break Away's executive director.
A key part of the experience, Mr. McCabe says, is a curriculum that teaches students beforehand about the issues they are going to encounter, offers time for lectures and discussions during the trip, and "debriefs" the students on their return about how to continue to find ways to serve others.
Universities are now looking beyond spring break, offering similar programs on weekends, and over the Thanksgiving and winter vacations. Some of Break Away's member schools now offer as many as 30 or 40 different trips a year.
Building Trails
Other organizations offer students the chance to spend part or all of their summers engaged in community service. For Molly Letsch, volunteering for the Student Conservation Association last year meant giving up a summer job and the income that went with it. But she says she didn't regret it for a minute, preferring to "do something that would mean something" rather than work another summer behind the counter at Burger King.
She first learned about the association on the Internet, and signed up for a five-week program working on a trail-building crew in Stroudwater Park in Portland, Me.
Volunteers typically work in teams of 6 to 10 youths, with one or two paid adult leaders. The teams usually live in tents and work together on a project for five weeks, enjoying a few days of recreational camping, hiking, or canoeing together when the work is done.
A typical day for Molly and her crew involved rising at 7 a.m. and sharing different chores on a rotating basis, from making breakfast to hanging laundry. Then she and her teammates worked eight-hour days leveling and widening trails, and building a bridge over a culvert to replace a section of trail that washed away in a flood.
After it was over, Molly says she came away not just with a tan and stronger muscles, but with greater self-confidence.
One project, the construction of a staircase at the trail head, was particularly challenging physically and she thought her team would never finish in time. After it was completed, she felt proud that "we finished something I didn't think I would be able to do."
During her senior year at school the following fall, she found herself putting her new leadership skills to work.
"Even if it was completely different from trail work, like a math project, I could take control of a situation and know what I wanted to do and achieve it," she says.
This summer, Molly needed money for college, so she couldn't afford to volunteer again. Instead, she is working as a paid intern at the Student Conservation Association's headquarters in Charlestown, N.H. She says she is already looking forward to volunteering again on vacation as an adult.
"I got so much out of it, and it gave so much to the community we were working in," she says. "A lot of local people would thank us for doing it, because it gave them a beautiful place to take their kids or walk their dogs right outside the city."