CNU Alternative Breaks, or just ‘CNU Alt Breaks,’ is an anchor organization dedicated to providing students community service opportunities over CNU’s fall and spring academic breaks. Over 2023’s fall break, spent nearly 30 hours at local work sites over the extended weekend.
These trips are arranged by their e-board, with the help of dedicated trip leaders who collaborate with community organizations interested in the help of these volunteers. During this most recent Fall Break, AltBreaks decided to keep their service trip within the Newport News community, making service trips to Bluebird Gap farm, the Virginia Living Museum and the Mariner’s Museum.
The Captain’s Log spoke with Andrew Emerson, AltBreak’s Vice President of Operations/Outreach and a Trip Leader for the Fall 2023 trip, who detailed what they got up to at the different work sites.
At Bluebird Gap farm, service consisted of beautification and animal care. As a part of preparing for their yearly Fall festival, they required general improvements and maintenance be made throughout the farm. This included securing some plants, cleaning up the pastures and more direct animal care. As a large group they took down a whole structure and rebuilt it to the farm’s safety standards.
At the Mariner’s Museum, volunteers did maintenance along the Nolan Trail. Drainage was cleared and the trail was shaped to better irrigate rainwater, which reduces erosion. This was particularly important to the museum, as the trail can be pretty difficult at points, which poses a real danger through the seasonal storm seasons.
At the Virginia Living Museum, they helped with setup for their “Night of the Living Museum,” a children’s exhibit put on by the museum through the Halloween season. Because this was for children, they took great care in making sure that the variety of exhibits were childproof. Some of the volunteers even got to go into some of the animal enclosures to clean up excess foliage and other items that might obscure the view of the animals.
After each day of volunteering, the participating students would reflect on the impact their service might have on the community. Many students have different motivations for going on such a trip, but the hope of CNU AltBreaks is that students will continue to have a positive impact on their community through regular service, even long after the trip.
“We talked about some of the ways that our service was pushing CNU away from bad history, maybe contributing a little bit more positively to the Newport News area than CNU has in the past has been able to,” Emerson said. “We are talking about ways to be better… [and] the ways that we as students can contribute to that.”
Alt Breaks will plan another service trip for the Spring of 2024, to take place over the week long Spring Break. If you would like to stay informed about this upcoming trip, or generally keep up with their impact in the community, you can follow them on Instagram at “cnualtbreaks.”
