While many students will spend their spring vacations engaged in traditional recreational activities, others will be performing community service by taking part in Oberlin’s Alternative Spring Break.

This year’s ASB project will have students working on the Genesis Farm in Blairstown, NJ for four full days. As part of their work, Obies will repair segments of the Appalachian Trail and volunteer in the Community Supported Garden there. Beth Blissman, head of the center for service and learning, told students gathered at last Sunday’s ASB informational session that the project will focus on “building a connection between the earth and people.”

The Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, N.J. founded the Genesis Farm, and this spring marks the its 25th anniversary. Its mission statement declares, “Genesis Farm is rooted in a belief that the Universe, Earth and all reality are permeated by the presence and power of that ultimate Holy Mystery that has been so deeply and richly expressed in the world’s spiritual traditions.”

Education and an organic community garden are the farm’s central activities.

In addition to the service project, volunteers will be assigned readings related to their work and attend team-building meetings prior to the trip, as well as a reflection meeting afterwards. These requirements are meant to give students a “more complete understanding of the social issues surrounding the community they travel to” and to build skills to work for “greater social changes in their everyday lives.”

First-year Krista Lewicki devoted her Winter Term to planning Alternative Spring Break. Before this there had not been a formal ASB at Oberlin.

“From what I gather, people have gone on a Habitat For Humanity trip, but there hasn’t been a program that does it every year, which is what we are trying to do now,” said Lewicki. A transfer student from Boston University, Lewicki was familiar with other colleges’ versions of alternative spring breaks. Over Winter Term she examined how several institutions had set up ASB’s and what organizations they used.

Building a team is one of the main goals of Alternative Spring Break, asserted Lewicki. She hopes to use people from the trip to build a staff for future service ventures.

Lewicki is currently considering several options for future Spring Breaks.

“Not all of them would be environmentally themed,” she said. “The bigger programs would encompass a broader set of ideas, so students could choose which ones they wanted.” These options include volunteer work in Costa Rica, Mexico, Washington, D.C. and a Navajo Reservation.

ASB applications are due on Monday, Feb. 28.