Forget Daytona. Many UWM students spend their spring break developing leadership skills and improving the lives of others. This year, more than 45 students traveled to North Carolina to work at a women’s shelter, food bank and other nonprofits and help clear hiking trails in time for spring.
UWM’s Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership and Research has offered an Alternative Spring Break program since 2013 to teach leadership skills and give students a chance to change lives.
Last week, participants took a bus to Asheville, North Carolina, for service projects and seven days of outdoor teambuilding activities. UWM students repainted rooms at a residence for homeless veterans; packed food at a food bank that serves hungry children; trimmed and transplanted fruit trees at an environmental education center; helped clean a creek with an urban conservation group; planted and mulched apple trees at a farm; and made lunch at Steadfast House, a shelter and training program for women. But it wasn’t just work and no play. The Panthers also went contra dancing with students from Warren Wilson College.
UWM’s Nicky Glaser, interim director of community-based learning at CCBLLR, stressed the importance of students exploring social justice issues in Asheville. Participants often bring new ideas from such experiences back to Milwaukee.
“We want students to get a renewed sense of the importance of service,” Glaser said, “But it’s also about personal development and getting them out of their comfort zones.”
For more information on CCBLLR events and programs, visit Union G28 or go to https://uwm.edu/community/.
