Students volunteer on the 2012 Alternative Break in Crawfordville, Fla. (Courtesy of SMU Alternative Breaks)

On March 10, SMU students from all academic disciplines and majors will travel to 10 different locations around the United States and abroad to serve in a various number of ways with the Alternative Breaks program.

The Alternative Breaks program at SMU is a chapter of the nationwide Break Away organization based in Atlanta. Break Away is a collegiate service organization that sends students from 160 colleges and universities, including SMU, all over the world in order to volunteer during spring break each year.

Katie Jones, student director of the SMU Alternative Breaks program, will be traveling to New York City this year.

Students attending this trip will be working with God’s Love We Deliver. Jones said that this organization delivers food to low-income, disabled residents of the city who are confined to their homes. This trip will be Jones’ eighth trip with the SMU Alternative Breaks program.

Jones became involved in the Alternative Breaks program during her first year at SMU.

“I was dragged onto a trip my freshman year spring break, and after that I just fell in love with it,” Jones said.

The program is sponsored by the Community Engagement & Leadership Department. According to its website, the mission of SMU Alternative Breaks is to “provide quality service experiences and awareness to all members of the Southern Methodist University community while creating active citizens through education, direct service, and reflection.”

Lisa Walters is the assistant student director of the Alternative Breaks program. She is also the site leader trainer for each program location. This year, Walters will be traveling to Crawfordville, Fla. to assist a wildlife refuge.

She became involved with the Alternative Breaks program on a gap year volunteering with an organization called Ubeci in Quito, Ecuador, where she met a previous Alternative Breaks director who had taken a group of SMU students there for a spring break.

Walters believes that part of living on this planet is helping others. “I get really upset when I see social injustice,” Walters said.

The main goal of the Alternative Breaks program is to give SMU students an opportunity to engage in “active citizenship by offering world changing service and life changing experiences.”

Paul Curry is the site leader for SMU students who are traveling to Gallup, NM this year.

Curry will be overseeing students who will be working with Navajo school children on and off campus, as well as assisting with manual side labor in the location.

“I consider the trip a success if the participants [students] get something out of the trip,” Curry said.

Curry explained that being a participant is quite different from being a site leader with the program. This will be his fourth trip with the Alternative Breaks program.

The Alternative Breaks program will be from March 10 to March 16.