In Spring 2008, Auburn University’s Office of Student Involvement had a dream: to bring students together with the common goal of serving those in need.
What started as a vision quickly blossomed into a student-led organization on the forefront of service on Auburn’s campus: Alternative Student Breaks.
“Alternative Student Breaks is an organization that engages students in outside communities,” said Harley Moore, junior in Biomedical Science. “It’s service work that you pour into a community in an impactful way.”
The group offers trips for all variants of student schedules, Moore explained.
“There’s a trip for literally everybody,” Moore said. “You take a trip for about a week with about 10 to 12 soon-to-be friends, and serve.”
Any student can participate in ASB at any break, the most common being the Fall, Winter and Spring breaks. The group is working to add Summer break work for those interested.
Students who embark on the global excursions during the Fall and Spring breaks dedicate their entire week to the service, Moore said.
The Winter trips are viewed as constructive ways to break up the month-long time away from studies on The Plains.
“For Winter, we think of it as a way to cut the break,” Moore said. “Not a lot of college students want to be home for four weeks. If you can go serve for a week, we believe that’s a good thing to spend your extra time doing.”
The program takes students around the world for different assignments. Moore, an ASB site leader, felt the Auburn Family’s global impact most recently amid service in Nicaragua.
“Auburn is a part of a Nicaraguan compact, which means that we send a group every year to work in these communities outside of Managua,” Moore said. “On our first day of touring the community, they showed us plantain trees that groups before us had planted, schools and homes that groups before us had built. It was eye-opening that Auburn left this impact on this community.”
While it’s near-impossible for the locals in the ASB-served societies to remember individual names and faces, the Auburn spirit is delivered in droves, leaving behind year-long legacies.
“When we leave, they don’t remember our names,” Moore said. “But they remember Auburn, and how much a school so far away loves them and cares about them.”
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