Students swap vacations for 'alternatives'

By Anthony Reyes and Troy Licastro

Bengal News West Reporters

The final day of classes before a break usually brings upon a routine: students go to their classes, squirm in their seats and keep a keen eye on the clock, impatiently waiting for the class to end. They’re ready to go and relax for a few days. 

This isn’t the case for students participating in volunteer and service-learning programs; their work is just beginning. Each of the four college campuses across the West Side offers its own varieties of these programs.

Canisius College offers an annual Service-Immersion program through its Campus Ministry, which has taken place for more than 25 years. Students travel to New York City, Erie, Syracuse, Appalachia,Jamaica, India, Poland and El Salvador to interact with people in those communities and grow in solidarity.

 “I love being able to craft transformative educational experiences for our students,” Sarah Signorino, associate campus minister said. “The focus of our program is to have our students be with and for others. We don't do these programs to help out. We do them to accompany others, to learn from them and have our hearts broken open from the experience.”

Through the service-immersion, the hope is that it increases awareness of the world, gives help where it is needed, challenge themselves to live a more simplified life and go into these areas and find God in someway to ultimately become part of the solution.

SUNYBuffalo State offers alternative breaks throughout the year as well. It offered an alternative fall break. The students stayed in Buffalo and worked to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness. There will also be an alternative winter break, students will travel to Washington D.C. to bring awareness to homelessness and food-insecurity.

There is a fee for the break, usually around $200, which covers the cost of the student’s room and food for the trip. But, beginning this year there will be a scholarship offered so that it can broaden the demographic of students who can apply for it.

“I think alternative breaks are a really unique experience for students here on campus,” Molly Diamond, co-coordinator of alternative break said. “Alternative breaks really hope to connect social issues and why things are happening and how things are happening, to students lives and also going out in the community and getting our hands dirty and taking that information that we learned and really applying it to different communities to making a difference.  

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The breaks are also led by students, the upcoming alternative fall break will be led by junior Sasa Vann and senior Allie Diamond. Vann stated that she did a lot of volunteer work in high school and found this as a way to continue that throughout college, which is why she decided to lead one of the breaks.

“When the community sees us out there most of the time they’ll ask ‘Are you doing this for a grade or are you getting some kind of credit for school?’” Vann said. “It’s just like ‘No, we’re not we just wanted to take time out, its only a weekend out of our lives, to help you, and make you feel better’.”

Both Vann and Diamond also expressed that the educational aspect of the alternative break is one of the most important aspects of it.

Medaille College offers an alternative spring break, through the non-profit group Heifer International. The break is primarily for its Vet Tech students, in which they travel to Massachusetts to work on a farm and reflect on the experiences.

According to Bridget Brace-MacDonald, director of the center for community-based learning at Medaille, it is offered because of the potential impact it can have on its students and their professional and personal development.

“I think students who participate in alternative spring break programs are giving themselves access to an experience they may never be able to take part in again,” Brace-MacDonald said. “College is the perfect time to do things like this. It allows them the opportunity to do something new and to make a difference in the lives of others.”

D’Youville College offers programs that integrate community service with instruction and reflection, it allows the students to learn civic responsibility and return it to their communities. It offers an annual trip to New Orleans which is a weeklong experience at the end of the fall semester where the students help those in need. D’Youville also offers local service projects as well.