For many college students spring break is a time to party, travel or just sleep and relax. But across the nation some are choosing public service over partying.
That’s the choice 25 UC Santa Cruz students made this year. I meet them in the backyard of a small white house in Watsonville where they are hanging clothes on the back fence and organizing bedding, toys and other household items on tables and blue tarps on the ground. All these items are donations collected by the students and will be made available for free to local farm workers during a makeshift flea market.
“A lot of the families of the farm workers will be here today having the opportunity to get access to these clothes and just basic necessities that we take for granted usually,” says Ashley Perez, a junior studying to be a school teacher and a student organizer of Alternative Spring Break for Colleges 9 and 10 at UCSC.
Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is a decade old tradition at UCSC and one the goes back even further at other universities across the country. During ASB students choose to devote their vacation to community service rather than relaxation.
Some schools do this by taking their students to far away destinations, and that used to be the case at UCSC. The first ASB took place in Tijuana in the early 2000s. Then after Hurricane Katrina, students spent several spring breaks in New Orleans.
But UCSC Service Learning Coordinator Abbey Asher says going away was expensive with students having to raise about $1000 each to be a part of the trips.
“And plus there’s plenty to do here at home. And there are areas of the county that students don’t even really know, such as, Live Oak and Watsonville, and there are very needy communities here right in our own backyard, so why not stay put ,” says Asher.
So two years ago, the students did ASB in the Santa Cruz County neighborhood of Live Oak. And this year it’s Watsonville. I met Asher at the Plaza in downtown. It’s a become a gathering spot for the students to eat lunch and a place to get a sense of the community their serving.
“If you look around you see a lot of men with broad brimmed hats, and they’re speaking in Spanish, and it really does remind me of being in Mexico,” says Asher.
During the week long break the students have planted seeds in a community garden at a local elementary school, worked on a mural with high schoolers and volunteered at the food bank. The idea is to expose students to social justice issues like food insecurity and education inequality. For their work, the students will earn two credits toward their degree.
“And I also want them to develop a love of service in their own lives. And I always say to students. No matter what you do. No matter what profession you choose. You can always be of service to your community and I’m really hoping to instill that in each and every one of these students,” says Asher.
Back at the free flea market, Julio Molina organizes his fellow spring breakers as the farm workers and their families start to line up. Molina, a UCSC senior, has never taken one of those traditional college spring break trips.
“So my spring breaks was never going to Cabo, never going to like Florida or anything. Usually I work like in a hotels, or I try to find jobs just so I can pay for college. So I don’t know anything other than work. So for me this is like, this is really cool. I get to do things, get school credit and also get involved in the community, so this is just a wonderful thing to be a part of,” says Molina.
To earn school credit, the students have to present a paper or project based on their week long experience.