Alternative Spring Break

Coordinated by the Office of Community Service Learning

The TaB (Take a Break) program was established during the 2001-2002 academic year to give students an opportunity to immerse themselves in service to one community over spring break.

TaB provides an opportunity for students to have a truly meaningful and rewarding spring break experience meeting new people and being challenged by social justice issues that face our communities.

In the spring of 2002 the inaugural group of 20 students and staff (divided into three teams) ventured to Tacoma, Washington, San Francisco, California and New York City. The Tacoma team worked in community gardens and soup kitchens serving the homeless of that city. In San Francisco students worked with social service agencies dealing with HIV/AIDS, drug and alcohol problems, homelessness and hunger. The New York trip grew out of the events of September 11, 2001. That team served meals to the workers clearing the World Trade Center site.

The spring of 2003 saw 46 students and seven faculty/staff heading for three sites, with Mari Schwalbach, Director of Community Service Learning, remaining in Salem to provide any emergency support the groups might need (none, we hope!).

The largest group (twenty-three students and advisors) left Salem by van for Ft. McDermitt, Nevada. On the Paiute-Shoshone Reservation they worked in a variety of areas which included everything from tutoring children to restoring homes to yard work.

Sixteen students/advisors flew to Chicago where they worked at a variety of sites on issues of homelessness and hunger. An additional fourteen students/advisors continued on to Jonestown, Mississippi, one of the poorest communities in the U.S. This group spent the week refurbishing a family's home (painting, flooring, fixing the bathroom sink, etc.).

Although the program is underwritten by the Lilly Project, each student made a $30 deposit and the TaB community raised $8,500 to purchase the tools needed at their work sites; tools which were donated at the end of the week to the communities the students served.

Participants met weekly beginning in January to prepare for the trips and for team building. "All three groups have done a phenomenal job of community development. They'll definitely be ready to go when they're on these trips,." said Mari Schwalbach prior to the teams' departure. She believes that "at the very least [Take a Break's] a wonderful memory [students] will have from their college career. At the very most, it changes their lives."