WSU Students Spend Spring Break Volunteering Across the Country
OGDEN, Utah – Every spring break, Weber State University provides volunteer opportunities for students, faculty and staff focusing on important social issues, including food insecurity, homelessness and sustainability. This year members of the WSU community are traveling to San Francisco, Hawaii, South Dakota and Texas to do meaningful work across the country.
Alternative Spring Break trips, hosted by the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL), give students a chance to spend a week immersed in service work. Participants will collaborate with nonprofit organizations to serve different communities in efficient ways.
This year, students will collaborate on food insecurity projects with several organizations, participate in environmental projects in two different states and volunteer on a reservation in South Dakota.
WSU junior Zadoth Vazquez has served as the director of Alternative Breaks since 2020. It was particularly challenging in 2021 because out-of-state trips were canceled due to safety concerns. Vazquez and her team were still determined to give participants the opportunity to serve the community, so they planned local trips working alongside organizations in Salt Lake City and Ogden. All CCEL training sessions were held virtually, and all volunteer work was socially distanced.
This year brings the return of travel, and 50 students are signed up to volunteer in San Francisco, Hawaii, Texas, South Dakota and Salt Lake City.
“Alternative Breaks allows students to get out of their comfort zone and broaden their learning experience,” Vazquez said. “Experiencing issues first-hand and asking difficult questions can really impact and transform students. I hope everyone that goes on an Alternative Break trip has that experience.”
To prepare for the trips, student trip leaders held service projects and training sessions all year, leading up to their departure.
Students traveling to San Francisco will focus on health and food insecurity. They’ll work alongside the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and Curry Without Worry – an organization that has served 700,000 people vegan Nepalese food since 2006.
In Hawaii, students will volunteer with Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii and will participate in beach clean-up projects, removal of 
microplastics from beaches and sustainable farming on the island of Oahu.
In a partnership with WSU’s Student Support Services program and CCEL, 10 students are traveling to Fort Worth, Texas, to get hands-on experience volunteering with the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and The Tarrant County Food Bank.
Students traveling to South Dakota will focus on Native American issues — working directly with the Sioux Reservation and volunteering daily with a local after-school program.
Eleven students also have the opportunity to volunteer with local organizations in Salt Lake City and Ogden. Participants will concentrate on youth immigration issues and will work alongside Promise South Salt Lake and the Volunteers of America Homeless Youth Resource Center.
“Volunteer work can be a transformative process,” Vazquez said. “I hope that all participants find a love for community engagement and a deeper understanding of it.”
CCEL offers Alternative Break trips during spring and fall. The generous support from nonprofit partners, as well as WSU faculty and staff who donate their time, contributes to the success of the trips. For more information, visit weber.edu/ccel/alternative-breaks-team
Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
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Kennedy Jones, Marketing & Communications
801-626-7948 • kennedyjones1@weber.edu
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- Contact:
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Allison Barlow Hess, Public Relations director
801-626-7948 • ahess@weber.edu
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