A handful of University of Nebraska–Lincoln students spent spring break in a non-traditional way — in service to others.
The Alternative Service Break trip was offered by the university’s Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement team, and was led by Andrew Brown, assistant director of community engagement in SLICE. Students Ben Bentzinger, MaKenna Clinch, Promise Emmanuel, along with Brown traveled to Kansas City March 17-20 and gave 21 hours of their time to three nonprofit organizations.
Alternative Service Break trips were once an annual event but were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following discussions with students who had volunteered in Lincoln through SLICE programming, Brown decided to relaunch the trip after a five-year hiatus.
“Conversations started last spring after some students told us this was something they’d like to do,” Brown said. “So, this spring break is a pilot. We chose Kansas City because it’s a different community than Lincoln, but the distance is only a three-hour drive.”
The "small team doing mighty things" — as the group dubbed themselves — volunteered at Kansas City nonprofits Hope Faith, a shelter; Harvesters, a food bank; and the Kansas City Zoo. The volunteer projects included sorting clothing, assembling 80 hygiene kits, sorting 2,800 pounds of beverages and 1,500 pounds of hygiene products, and landscape work. The efforts benefited individuals in 27 counties across Kansas and Missouri.
“We actually got to see how our work impacted others,” Bentzinger, a senior majoring in criminology and criminal justice, said. “The things we were sorting, we saw distributed, from donation to seeing it given to people.”
The students also enjoyed getting to know each other while experiencing new restaurants and taking tours of various places, such as the Power and Light District, in Kansas City.
“I’d never been there, and we had fun exploring the town and trying out restaurants,” Emmanuel said.
All three students mentioned career aspirations in the nonprofit and non-governmental organization sphere as a reason for going on the service trip. They also wanted to see community service from a new perspective and learn how communities outside Lincoln work to alleviate hunger and homelessness.
For Clinch, it was the first time she had taken a trip on spring break, and volunteering and meeting new people were appealing to her.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity to gain some new perspectives in a new community, doing something more meaningful while getting out of my comfort zone,” Clinch, a senior majoring in sociology, said.
Looking toward graduation in May, Clinch said the trip reaffirmed the career path she hopes to take.
“I was undecided my freshman year and then chose sociology because all of the things I could do with that really interested me,” she said. “This trip really solidified that working in nonprofits is something I want to do — helping my community in any way possible.”
Bentzinger helped Brown identify the sites where the students volunteered. He’s considering law school and wants to work in policymaking, possibly running for elected office in the future. He said seeing the holistic system that Kansas City uses to help homeless individuals and families informed him on making these systems better in other communities.
“What I gathered from going there and seeing what they have, is they have a really efficient network of the nonprofits working together to provide services from food to mental health care and housing,” Bentzinger said. “I think we can do a much better job of streamlining those resources to help individuals and families in our community.”
Seeing the direct impact of their work was especially meaningful, Emmanuel said.
“It warmed my heart to work with them,” she said. “As a Ph.D. student in global family health and well-being, I understand how homelessness impacts individuals and families and the community at large. Seeing how the shelter worked and how we were able to help was the highlight for me.
“It really showed me how volunteerism does do a lot for communities.”
Brown said SLICE will likely offer the trip in the future, possibly during fall and winter breaks. He hopes it will grow into an annual tradition with small groups of students helping several communities at the same time.
“We’d like to see it grow, but stay focused on communities within driving distance,” Brown said.
Emmanuel encouraged students to take a chance on Alternative Service Break trips in the future.
“I would tell anyone who wants to volunteer to consider this trip, because volunteering in your own community is different than going somewhere else to volunteer,” she said. “It’s going to give you new exposure, and you’re going to meet new people, a new network, especially if you’re interested in the nonprofit sector.”
