GVSU students spend Spring Break helping others

Some 150 Grand Valley State University students are making final preparations and gearing up to spend the university's March 2-6 spring break helping out the less fortunate all over the country.

The students are participants in Grand Valley State University's Alternative Breaks student organization. The group sends of Grand Valley students around the country to volunteer over weekend, holiday, and spring breaks each year. Participants in this year's trips start leaving at the end of this week.  Groups are fanning out to 18 different locations in Maryland, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

Grand Valley student Geoff Hickox of Okemos in his fourth year participating in the program, and this year he's the coordinator for the student organization that runs it.  "I think participating in Alternative Break has been the catalyst for great personal growth. It has been a profound experience," Hickox said. "Before, I never volunteered at all — I was centered on my own life. This experience opened up my eyes to a lot of social issues I wasn't aware of."

Hickox spent time working with domestic violence victims in Texas and inner-city youth in Philadelphia. He said that the experience was so life-changing that he changed his major to Public and Nonprofit Administration to continue working with those in need.

Each trip consists of two site leaders and up to 10 participants. Participants travel all over the country and work on a variety of issues, including: community health, affordable housing, animal rights, youth and poverty and individuals with special needs. The trips are based around those social issues, not geographic locations. The locations are kept secret until after participants have been placed so that students will pick based on a specific issue, not the climate of the destination. The destination is unveiled during orientation. Some 250 students participated in Alternative Breaks during the 2007-08 school year. Last year, the program sent out the largest number of trips in its history — 25 in total.

Grand Valley's Alternative Breaks program has received national recognition. It was named the best in the country at the national Break Away Conference in July.  It was also one of the programs recognized when Grand Valley was named to the 2008 President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Participation in the program is entirely on students' own time. Alternative Breaks is a student-run organization. The group is run by a nine-member student executive board and site leaders who volunteer to lead a trip.