An Alternative Service Break can be a priceless opportunity for University of Idaho students hoping to volunteer in a new environment.
These trips, offered during winter and spring break, have allowed students over the past 13 years the chance to serve communities in need across the country and even the world.
The process for selecting students wanting to serve on one of these trips has been thorough and organized. Hopefuls apply online and wait to be called for an interview. Those selected are carefully organized into groups based on their interview and application.
That is, until the Center for Volunteerism and Social Action decided to make a change, believing that the ASB program has outgrown its process. In an effort to increase the capacity of the trips, the center is nixing the old process and implementing a new one.
Now, the application procedure will take more of a free-for-all approach, with a one-day, first come, first serve tabling event that will give students a single opportunity to register for a trip. The tables will be set up by destination, letting students pick their location.
If the program really has outgrown its process, a modification was necessary. But now, the process has been simplified in a way that will prevent those who can’t attend the daylong tabling from taking a trip.
Not only that, but this will allow groups of friends a chance to sign up for the same trip — something that may create separation between service volunteers.
The current method relies on a process that uses a student’s application and interview to place them onto a team with the intention to create diverse groups. This allows students the chance to interact with, and work alongside new acquaintances from a variety of demographics and backgrounds, an important and integral part of the ASB experience.
The current process also utilizes interviews to ensure students who apply are dedicated to the “service” aspect of the trip — weeding out the occasional few who anticipate they’ll be sprawling out on an Ecuadorian beach soaking in the South American sun for two weeks. These trips ideally attract those who want to embrace a new culture and spend hours upon hours working in a food kitchen, reconstructing houses or rebuilding a community.
Essentially, these trips are anything but a 14-day vacation.
While the expansion of the program is positive in more than one way, the restructuring of the application process will create a jumbled mess, rather than an organized reform.
— TL