** For all Alternative Break trips associated with a service-learning undergraduate academic course, please note that following:
- Trips/courses are open to undergraduate students only.
- All course credits will apply to the Spring 2010 semester and transcript.
- Students must be accepted in the Alternative Breaks Program and selected for the trip to be eligible for the course.
- Course registration information will be provided to the students once accepted into the Alternative Breaks Program.
- Course meetings times/dates will be determined after the group is formed.
To view payment schedule for each trip, please click here.
Winter Break - January 2-10, 2010
Habitat for Humanity
Location: Oak Ridge, TN
Focus: Affordable Housing
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Volunteers build houses in partnership with families in need.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Winter Break - January 2-13, 2010
Volunteer of America Southeast
Location: Mobile, Alabama
Focus: Disaster Relief
Volunteers of America is a national, nonprofit organization providing local human service programs and opportunities for individual and community involvement. Planning for the next 100 years, Volunteers of America will continue to prove that there are no limits to caring. Volunteers will serve assist with clean-up and rebuilding efforts in communities effected by Hurricane Katrina.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Winter Break - January 2-14, 2010
ProWorld – Mexico
Location: Oaxaca, Mexico
Focus: Community Development
Service-Learning Academic Course - Undergraduate Only
Wagner School of Public Service
Co-requisite: A 2-credit undergraduate course, Sex & Movements: Gender, Class and Social Movements in the Caribbean and Latin America with Sylvia Maier and Diana Lugo-Martinez from Wagner School of Public Service (4 Classes, 2 hours each)
ProWorld's mission is to empower communities, promote social and economic development, conserve the environment, and cultivate educated compassionate global citizens. In 2002, half the population in Mexico was living in poverty and one fifth was living in extreme poverty. Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in Mexico with more than a third of its population living on less than three dollars a day. ProWorld integrates volunteers in existing projects and creates opportunities for cultural understanding.
The program includes home-stays in the local community and various community activism and cultural experiences. In addition to active participation during the service trip, students will participate in daily reflection activities, maintain a reflection journal, and write a 6-8 page final paper.
Requirements: valid passport, tetanus booster up-to date, Hepatitis A vaccine recommended - (Please visit www.cdc.gov/travel/ for up-to-date information about required and recommended immunizations.)
Transportation: Air
Cost: $2,320
ProWorld Peru
Location: Cusco, Peru
Focus: Community Development
Service-Learning Academic Course - Undergraduate Only
Wagner School of Public Service
Co-requisite: A 2-credit undergraduate course, Sex & Movements: Gender, Class and Social Movements in the Caribbean and Latin America with Sylvia Maier and Diana Lugo-Martinez from Wagner School of Public Service (4 Classes, 2 hours each)
ProWorld's mission is to empower communities, promote social and economic development, conserve the environment, and cultivate educated compassionate global citizens.
Over half of Peru's 25 million people live in poverty, making it one of the poorest countries in South America. Peru faces many troubling social and economic challenges including high unemployment and even higher underemployment. These conditions lead to poverty for many Peruvians – volunteers will help to provide its citizens with basic health care, education, sanitation, and other social services. ProWorld integrates volunteers in existing projects and creates opportunities for cultural understanding.
The program includes home-stays in the local community and various community activism and cultural experiences. In addition to active participation during the service trip, students will participate in daily reflection activities, maintain a reflection journal, and write a 6-8 page final paper.
Requirements: valid passport, tetanus booster up-to date, malaria pills prescription, Hepatitis A vaccine recommended - (Please visit www.cdc.gov/travel/ for up-to-date information about required and recommended immunizations.)
Transportation: Air
Cost: $3,070
Winter Break - January 7-15, 2010
Galveston City School District
Location: Galveston, Texas
Focus: Disaster Relief/Education
Volunteers travel to Texas to provide the short-term relief for the victims of Hurricane Ike and to assist in long-term rebuilding efforts in communities devastated by the disaster in the island city on the Gulf of Mexico in 2008. The trip will be more focused on the education systems in the region post-hurricane. Participants will be conducting or assisting in various educational programs for high school and middle school students.
Transportation: Air
Cost: $600
Spring Break March 13-20, 2010
Open Hand Atlanta
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Focus: Public Health
Open Hand mission is to help people prevent or better manage chronic disease through Comprehensive Nutrition Careª, which combines home-delivered meals and nutrition education as a means to reinforce the connection between informed food choices and improved quality of life. Volunteers will prepare and deliver freshly cooked meals and nutrition services to homebound seniors and people living with critical and chronic illness.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Common Ground Relief
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Focus: Hurricane Relief/Environment
This trip is open to all students living in an NYU residence hall. The Residential Education Leadership Team and faculty work closely with this trip in preparing for the service experience.
Common Ground Relief's mission is to provide short-term relief for victims of hurricane disasters in the gulf coast region, and long term support in rebuilding the communities affected in the New Orleans area. Common Ground Relief is a community-initiated volunteer organization offering assistance, mutual aid and support. The work gives hope to communities by working with them, providing for their immediate needs and emphasizes people working together to rebuild their lives in sustainable ways.
Participants will aid in the Bioremediation/Community Gardens Services, which focuses on food security in residential areas. Volunteers may be performing soil tests and assisting resident in the construction and maintenance of Community Garden spaces in the New Orleans area. Biomediation volunteers have helped remediate soil using natural methods, such as removing lead from the soil through the planting of ferns. You will also aid with the Wetland Volunteer Services to rebuild and renew the Wetland by planting grass and trees in the Bayou in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Bay Crest Elementary School
Location: Tampa, FL
Focus: Children and Education
Service-Learning Academic Course - Undergraduate Only
Silver School of Social Work
Co-requisite: Service Learning Through Youth and Community Engagement with Dr. Peggy Morton, NYU Silver School of Social Work, 1-credit undergraduate course (meets 3 times for 3 hours each).
This trip is availably only to students in a Fraternity or Sorority. Students will provide tutoring for students from disadvantaged backgrounds at Bay Crest Elementary School in Tamp, FL. The accompanying course will offer broad and general content related to students' service experiences. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the individuals with whom they are working and the contexts in which they live and learn. The course will touch on the fundamentals of engaging individuals in a helping situation; theories related to individual development; implications of race, ethnicity, culture and immigration for this particular demographic/geographic group; impacts of multiple social contexts: the family, peers, school, social agencies and community; understanding the effects of social oppression on people's lives: poverty, racism, sexism, classism, etc. Students will be expected to do journal writing and will have opportunities in class to share their pre and post-trip reflections.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Conservation
Location: Cherokee, North Carolina
Focus: Environment/Conservation (Trail Building & Campsite Maintenance)
This rugged outdoor volunteer experience will include daily hands-on trail building administered by Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In the evenings, participants will stay in tents at base camp and enjoy various opportunities for recreational exploration of the park. In addition, the service experience will include overnight hiking on the Appalachian Trail to clean trail shelters and provide other maintenance to this heavily trafficked and important trial.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $300
Dr. Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute!
Location: Hillsboro, West Virgina
Focus: Health Care/Community Outreach
Dr. Patch Adams and the Gusendheit Institute aims to introduce a compassionate, fun-spirited, and cooperative community to the society, particularly through the practice of health care. During the trip, volunteers could be doing anything from doing organic garden work and grounds maintenance to cooking and clowning at the local hospital and nursing homes.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Focus: Homelessness
The Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless is a unified social action agency, fully committed to its ultimate goal: the eradication of homelessness with respect for the dignity and diversity of its membership, the homeless and the community. The Coalition works towards this goal by coordinating services, educating the public, and engaging in grassroots organizing and advocacy. The group will be working at shelters, soup kitchens, and housing organizations.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Habitat for Humanity
Location: Mt. Pleasant, SC
Focus: Affordable Housing
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Volunteers build houses in partnership with families in need.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Habitat for Humanity
Location: Statesville, NC
Focus: Affordable Housing
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Volunteers build houses in partnership with families in need.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Orphanage Outreach
Location: Monte Cristi, Dominican Republic
Focus: Global Poverty/Low Income Housing
This trip is available only to students living in an NYU residence hall. Orphanage Outreach provides opportunities to orphaned, abandoned, and disadvantaged children. Volunteers will tutor children at the orphanage in reading, math, art, science, music, and theater. Volunteers will also be involved in a range of recreational activities with the children. Cultural trips and educational opportunities will also be part of the experience. Volunteers will be housed at the orphanage.
Requirements: valid passport, tetanus booster up-to date, malaria pills prescription, Hepatitis A vaccine recommended - (Please visit www.cdc.gov/travel/ for up-to-date information about required and recommended immunizations.)
Transportation: Air
Cost: $1,000
Habitat for Humanity International
Location: Braga, Portugal
Focus: Global Poverty/Children
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Volunteers build houses in partnership with families in need.
Transportation: Air
Cost: $2,500
Cumberland Trail Conference
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Focus: Environmental Preservation/Conservation
The Cumberland Trial Conference’s mission is the establishment and development of the Cumberland Trial and its associated corridor, which provides for the preservation of the historical, cultural, and environmental aspects of the Cumberland Plateau. Volunteers will be assisting in the construction of the Cumberland Scenic Trial, such as doing carpentry work, rock work, and painting.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $400
Weekend Break – November 13-15, 2009 (Friday 3PM – Sunday 6PM)
Habitat for Humanity
Location: Newburgh, NY
Focus: Affordable Housing
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Volunteers build houses in partnership with families in need.
Transportation: Vans
Cost: $125
Weekend Break – February 12-14, 2010 (Friday 3PM – Sunday 6PM)
Romero Center – Urban Challenge
Location: East Camden, New Jersey
Focus: Urban Poverty
The Urban Challenge experience gives participants opportunity to build bridges of understanding. The experience will help participants understand how to confront issues, which divide us - poverty, race, and class - in a constructive environment. During the day, participants work at a variety of work sites: schools with hot meal programs, drop-in centers for persons infected and affected with HIV and AIDS, housing construction, the South Jersey Food Bank, and several other agencies in Camden and the Philadelphia area. In the evening, participants discuss urban poverty, social and economic justice, and reflect on the role they play in creating social change. The experience also includes tours of the city and guests community speakers who share their stories about living in Camden.
Transportation: Mini-Vans
Cost: $150
All trips are subject to change.