In recent years colleges and universities across the country have posted on their website and social media accounts stories about “alternative” spring breaks organized for students as an option to the traditional spring break to relax or for fun-themed trips to get away from classes. The alternative spring break is designed to give students the chance to focus not so much on self, but to look outward, to see and to serve others by offering helping hands to local or distant communities and neighbors in need.
Ideally, as the years pass, the once alternative spring break can and often becomes the norm for students and faculty filling unmet needs for the destination community, while at the same time resulting in a transformative and life changing experience for the students, faculty and staff who make the choice to serve.
Thankfully, The Catholic University of America is a place where students, faculty, and staff immerse themselves in these experiences. These service trips embody the obligation we are called to live from the Gospel, our Church and in our university mission. Serving others is by no means an “alternative” action. To serve others is one of the most uplifting experiences we can have through the act of service and in the receipt of service.
For the last five years, for example, the law school clinic at Catholic University, where I serve on the faculty, has coordinated spring break trips for students to the U.S. southern border to bridge the gap in legal services for the men, women and children seeking refuge from the poverty, violence and political persecution they have suffered from their various home countries in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, as well as other parts of the world. During this year’s spring break in March, one of our faculty staff attorneys took several law students to volunteer with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, an immigration project of the American Bar Association.
The law students were trained to provide immigrant detainees with “know your rights” presentations, met with individual asylum seekers to update them about the status of their asylum cases, and hosted a legal clinic to assist border newcomers in completing work permit applications so they can work lawfully in the United States to support their families while navigating the immigration process.
In addition, the team toured the U.S.-Mexico border and saw for themselves the challenges and confusion that recent arrivals to the border face. They also volunteered at a respite center run by Catholic Charities of Rio Grande Valley, where they provided legal information and engaged with families, serving meals and playing with the children, serving as a brief and welcomed distraction from the uncertainty and chaos at the border.
For most of the students, this experience would be their first to apply what they were learning in the classrooms and to be able to see how their newly acquired skills and knowledge could actually help one of our most vulnerable communities of neighbors. In their reflections following the trip, students took time to reflect on their reasons for coming to law school to help others, to appreciate the connection between what they are learning in class and how their studies enable them to be effective advocates for others, and to understand the intersection of the border crisis as it is manifested in the lives of asylum seekers with our nation’s immigration laws and regulations.
This spring break of service at the university was not limited to the law school. The university’s Conway School of Nursing and Campus Ministry also sponsored service spring break trips. Nursing and pre-med students participated in service practicums to Costa Rica in rural villages and urban neighborhoods, where the students helped set up temporary clinics in underserved communities to provide medical screenings, health care education and met with a local health care provider to learn about specific health care needs for the children in these communities.
This experience, like that for our law students, was transformative, providing a great opportunity for practical application of their skills and knowledge in real life experiences, developing cultural competency with marginalized and diverse communities, and vividly witnessing the life changing impact of their compassionate service in such communities.
Our Campus Ministry also provided several immersion service trips for students at the University during the March spring break. The students accompanied members of our religious and lay staff to New York City, Los Angeles and Guatemala. During these visits students were able to provide outreach to the homeless communities in these areas, and to participate in food distribution programs and street evangelization with religious orders sharing the Gospel. One participant described the week of prayer and service as one of “countless powerful interactions.”
By combining service with academic and professional development our students can find a special meaning and purpose in their university experience that is often transformative for them, as well as the people they have served.
These alternative spring break experiences of students bring to mind the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:35-40, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. ... Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers, you did for me.”
(Veryl Victoria Miles is a professor of law and special assistant to the president at The Catholic University of America.)
