Break Away: Johnson State College Badger Alternative Breaks

Editor's note: Many of you have asked for information regarding our Break Program, so we have asked our groups to write up information on their programs, and why they chose MABCR. That post will follow tomorrow. Break weeks begin tomorrow. If you are interested in joining us for work days or social time, please contact me privately at SLR@mabcr.org.

History:

Johnson State College Badger Alternative Break formally known as Break Away was founded in 1991 shortly after the national Break Away program was founded. In the last 23 years our program has sent out over one hundred alternative break experiences across the nation and globe. We have focused on a variety of social issues including urban poverty, clean water access, animal advocacy, rural poverty, environmental sustainability and more. Our program was one of the founding schools of national Break Away.

Badger Alt Breaks (B-AB) is run out of the Johnson State College SERVE Office which is the home of community service opportunities on our campus.  From the SERVE Office we offer many programs including three mentoring programs, one local service opportunities, blood drives, drop and swaps, and various other service programs.

Funding:

B-AB is completely self-funded and our participants work very hard to fundraise every penny of their trip budgets. Budgets generally run at $5,000 for domestic trips and $10,000 for international ones. The only out of pocket cost (hopefully) is a $50 deposit that participants are required to make at the beginning of the year.

Throughout the year B-AB runs program wide fundraisers such as letter writing campaign, Rent-a-Breaker, Badger Alt Break Swag and chocolate bar sales. Individually groups run fundraisers such as comedic beauty pageants, date auctions, Valentine’s Day flower sales, and many others. In the past our program receives a small donation from student government but due to budget cuts that is no longer a funding resource.

If at the end of the program year (we end the first week of April, but budgets are due the first week of March) the remaining budget is split up equally between group members and charged to student accounts. This is a rare occurrence, but when it does happen it is generally a small amount and not too overwhelming.

Staffing:

Badger Alternative Breaks is completely student run and operated. The staffing is as follows…

Co-Chairs run the program in the sense that we directly supervise the site leaders and our supervisor oversees co-chairs. We run all meetings, events and other needs of the site leaders. Trips are designed and planned by co-chairs (although in the past and possibly future we are going back to having site leaders plan experiences) Program wide fundraisers are run by co-chairs with assistance from site leaders. Site leaders are responsible for facilitating their group meetings and any individualized events or fundraisers.

Trips:

Each year we send out between three and five different alternative breaks, it only depends on how many site leader applicants we have and how much interest in the program there is. In the past we’ve run one international experience a year, with the other two or three or four being domestic experiences.  Sites and host organizations are chosen by co-chairs with the interests of site leaders being heavily taken into consideration

JSC:

Johnson State is a small, rural libral arts school on the top of a hill in a very small town of Johnson, VT. There are about 1,800 students total with about 600 on campus. Many students choose JSC because it is nestled between three large mountains, and close to many home.