Committee FAQs

Alternative Breaks is an organization that creates engaging service learning trips around envirometal and social justice issues that studnets are interested in experiencing more about. This is done by coordinating with non-profit organizations around the country. We want our students to understand issues first hand and believe that our trips allow them to understand the issue and impact on a deeper level.

Alternative Breaks plans trips to help provide new experiences and learning opportunities to our students. Our trips help students build meaningful relationships with community partners and members and strengthen leadership skills while pursuing the goal of making everyone a more conscious and active citizen.

Come join Alternative Breaks at any point in the semester, just swing by our committee meetings.  E-mail altbreaks@union.wisc.edu to get more information!

No worries! For many students participating in an Alternative Break trip, it is sometimes their first exposure to service learning.

It's not hard at all. You only have to come to our meetings once a week for an hour. We've created a step-by-step checklist with many resources that will ease the process and if you run into any difficulties you have a wonderful leadership team and committee that can help you! 

We have planned trips on a large variety of issues over the years. As long as there is a community partner and location that we can access we can create a trip around your issue! If you aren't sure where to start planning don't worry! We have a couple trips we often repeat and you can help plan those. Otherwise,  common topics/themes include:

• Ableism & Disabilities
• Age & Ageism
• Animal Welfare
• Arts
• Community Organizing
• Criminal Justice & Prison Reform
• Disaster Recovery & Rebuilding
• Education
• Environment
• Food & Hunger
• Health (HIV/AIDS, mental health, addiction, public health)
• Historic & Cultural Preservation
• Housing & Homelessness
• Human Trafficking
• Immigration & Refugee Resettlement
• LGBTQ & Gender Equity
• Military & Veterans
• Native Americans & Indigenous Nations
• Race & Racism
• Violence Prevention (gang violence, domestic violence, sexual violence)
• Workers' Rights
• Youth Development
• And More!

We just try to to avoid having too many trips focused on one topic each break.