Still have no plans for spring break? Community Engagement & Leadership will continue their Alternative Spring Break program, in which students can register to volunteer in and learn about three different communities in the Pacific Northwest.
For one week, Oregon State University students will be put into groups of 10 or 12 to travel to either Yakima, Washington, San Francisco, California or Ashland, Oregon to perform direct service projects.
Students will learn about the history, culture and politics of the community by engaging in educational conversations, discussions and attending presentations with community leaders.
Emma Kim-Hare, a student co-lead of the program, explained the program works closely with the communities they visit to build a close relationship with each one and to address specific needs within that community.
“We also try to do education sessions,” Kim-Hare said. “Just based on those different issues and needs within that community.”
Kim-Hare said each student is picked for a particular community based on a form students are asked to fill out, they then rank each community based on their interests.
“So we take the ranking into consideration as well as their responses to the form, basically.” Kim-Hare said.
According to Kim-Hare, the program collects participant feedback through surveys each year and they use this feedback to improve the trip. These new additions to the program include pre-trip meetings and what the program calls “team bonding.”
“We do different ice breakers, fun activities, as well as just talking with each other and getting to know each other,” Kim-Hare said.
Kim-Hare also noted another addition to the program in recent years is a Canvas page with information on the trip and the communities they will visit to help prepare participants for the upcoming trip.
“It just gives a general information on the different community partners that we’re gonna be working with,” Kim-Hare said. “Also, information on the different communities within that area. Just so that they kinda know what’s going on, (and) what we’re gonna be focusing on.”
According to Kim-Hare, one aspect which is brand new for the program for 2026 was a special team bonding session for which the program collaborated with the OSU Challenge Course.
She highlighted that many students who participated in the program tended to take away the power of seeing humanity in others.
“That tends to change peoples’ perspective and makes them feel motivated to take a larger role in their own communities,” Kim-Hare said. “It also helps them to better understand the community and the root causes of the issues that they’re going through.”
Kim-Hare hopes students who participate in the program this year will walk away from their experiences with both more knowledge about other communities and how they can apply what they learned while on the trip to their lives.
“I hope that they just are able to learn about the communities that we’re working with and being more aware of how they can make social change within their own lives,” Kim-Hare said.
The deadline to apply to the Alternative Spring Break Program is Jan. 23. For more information or to apply, visit Community Engagement and Leadership’s website at see.oregonstate.edu.