Alternative Spring Breaks (ASB) are a great way for Carleton students to get off-campus and interact with and learn about Minnesota from a new perspective. These week-long trips fill a gap left by Carleton students’ departure for spring break, while providing a deeply meaningful experience for students.
As an affordable break option for students and a resource for the host sites, these week-long trips are one more way that the CCCE upholds mutually beneficial relationships with its community partners. Building on the partnerships made through the CCCE’s Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) classes, Community-Based Work Study positions, and volunteer initiatives, this year’s Alternative Spring Break trips sought to fill a gap in community engagement left by Carleton’s spring break.
The 2023 ASB trips were full of innovation. The CCCE staff and our community partners collaboratively envisioned the future of the ASB program. In tandem with our host site partners, this year’s trips centered heavily on the idea of critical service learning, or placing participants’ week-long experiences into the larger fabric of each organization’s work.
The CCCE hosted two trips this spring: a group of six students spent the week at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, a long-term partner, and helped to prepare the Center for spring while learning more about organic farming, climate change, and environmental education. Trip leaders for this trip were Adele Fredericks ’25 and Liwei Weng ’25.
To read more about Wolf Ridge, check out participant Lexi Wallace’s blog post!
The second trip, Place-Based Justice In Rice County, ran for the first time this year and stayed closer to home. Partnering with two local organizations, Sharing Our Roots Farm and Rice County Habitat for Humanity, the Place-Based Justice participants learned about, and participated in, the types of change taking place in our local Northfield and Faribault.
Another new change this year involved the trips’ leadership: all of this year’s trip leaders were CCCE Fellows, student staff who run many of the CCCE’s programs and initiatives. These Fellows were able to use their CCCE-based training and experience to better inform their leadership styles during spring break.
This year’s local trip leaders, Valentina Guerrero Chala ‘24 and Lizzet Solache Salgado ‘25, reflect on their experiences. Place-based Justice In Rice County centered on two pillars of the Rice County community: Sharing Our Roots, a local regenerative agriculture farm committed to providing land access to emerging BIPOC and immigrant farmers, and Rice County Habitat for Humanity, which is currently finishing up a 5-house project in Faribault. Leading a total of eight students from across the Carleton community, Place-Based Justice leaders Valentina and Lizzet coordinated alternating days between the two host sites, tying together land justice and housing security for their participants. Students on these trips had the opportunity to not only learn directly from our partners about the structural issues facing their organization, but also to think more deeply about the complexity of community-based work. Lizzet reflects that, “Sometimes the effect of volunteering is a few steps removed from the bigger picture goal, so to hear how we were contributing to that helped put the work in perspective.”
Being in this leadership role was the perfect opportunity to reflect on how I can use reflection activities and informal conversations to encourage others to challenge what they previously thought and engage in critical service learning.”
Valentina Guerrero Chala ’24
The leaders facilitated daily discussions within their group, meant to connect students’ on-the-ground experiences with larger questions surrounding what food, rent, and land justice look like in Rice County and what role service learning can play in social change.
“Sometimes the effect of volunteering is a few steps removed from the bigger picture goal, so to hear how we were contributing to that helped put the work in perspective.”
The CCCE is excited to continue to deepen our relationship with Sharing Our Roots and Rice County Habitat for Humanity in the coming years. Looking into the future, Alternative Spring Breaks will continue to act as a way to support our community partners while providing a deeply meaningful experience for Carleton students. As Valentina summarizes, “Even though I still have more questions than answers about what it means to do ethical volunteer work, this experience taught me very valuable lessons about how I can negotiate my positionality in different spaces and work with people with distinct identities and values.”
To learn more about Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, Sharing Our Roots Farm, or Rice County Habitat for Humanity, check out their websites or email Danielle Trajano (dtrajano@carleton.edu) for more information!