UA News

Alternative Breaks, a UA student-led organization that engages in service projects during the week of spring break each year, has returned to the UA after a hiatus.

After a three-year absence, Alternative Breaks has returned to the University of Arizona campus.

Originally founded in 1994, it was a division of the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership. The idea was a local offshoot of Break Away, a national organization based in Atlanta that aims to provide college students with a service-oriented alternative to the typical, leisure-based spring break.

Alternative Breaks has filled its capacity for this semester and will take 18 volunteers to Los Angeles March 13 and 21.

While in California, volunteers will work with AIDS Project Los Angeles, or APLA. APLA offers medical services, insurance assistance, nutrition information, case managers and a hotline for questions answered by interns and volunteers to individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

The last trips organized by UA Alternative Breaks were in 2006.

The group reformed as a club independent of the CSIL for a year and organized four volunteer trips, but struck another roadblock during the fall of 2007 when many members of the executive board graduated. There was no official declaration of disbandment, but it was unable to function without any structure.

"We were just kind of waiting to get an email, to hear about it and what was going on," said John Kozel, who attended one of the trips as a freshman in 2006.

Since then, the revival of the program has been the side project of Kozel.

After he graduated, Kozel accepted a job in Residence Life, where he made rebuilding Alternative Breaks a professional goal because of the lasting impression it made on him.

"It was truly open to all students. The group that I went with to AIDS Project that first year, it was all walks of life. Students that were majors in biology, students that were majors in English, we had everybody across the board. You name it, we were all there and we all did it together," Kozel said.

Kozel began by contacting the former club president via Facebook, who advised him on how to rebuild the club as a student-run organization.

In October 2009, files were pulled from storage and an office space was reestablished in the CSIL. Kozel, with advisers Heather Roundtree, Zach Nicolazzo and Kevin Cleary, selected a group of seven students for their executive board.

Alana Connell, a member of the executive board and assistant director of marketing for Alternative Breaks, participated in 2006. Her goal was to convey to students her own positive experience and that the organization recognizes that students want a vacation.

"It's not just about the volunteering. It's about the people. It's still spring break. It is work, but it's also fun and rewarding," Connell said.

This year's group of UA students will be housed in Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, just a few blocks from APLA offices.

The Princeton chapter of Alternative Breaks also will stay in the same church, and the two groups will team up for some service projects with APLA.

"The thing that I find really important about alternative spring breaks, in short, is it's a really great opportunity in service learning, to actually learn by doing," Kozel said. "It gives students that firsthand account of what exactly that they're working towards."