The first Loyola University Community Action Program – coordinated spring break trip since Hurricane Katrina will bring 13 students, faculty and staff to Midtown Memphis, Tenn. this year.   

Trip coordinators, music composition sophomore Chris Castaneda and political science senior Brian Parks, and 11 other participants will team with the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center to participate in service activities April 5 through April 10, building urban-sustainable gardens in low-income areas and providing meals for the homeless. 

Philosophy pre-law and English literature sophomore Maria Rossi contemplated attending the alternative-spring break trip but ultimately decided not to attend. She said Castaneda and Parks strived to link student life with service, so they concocted a series of alternative-spring break trips.

“It seems that one of Loyola’s goals is to provide students with the opportunity to serve the community at anytime during the year,” she said. “Adding a week long-volunteering opportunity during spring break only seems natural for our university.”

LUCAP staff advisor, Josh Daly, said Castaneda and Parks proposed five other alternative-spring break trips in the fall and requested LUCAP’s involvement.

Other ideas, like assisting Habitat for Humanity along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and YouthBuild in Brownsville, Texas, fell through due to budgeting and complications with transportation, meals or housing, Daly said.

“If we had the funding or students could raise the funds, we have potential to look at more trips,” he said.

No vacancies remain on the trip.

Parks said he and Castaneda chose this trip because it exemplifies Loyola’s ideals of social justice and meshes with the message that peace begins at home, the theme of the Student Peace Conference that Loyola is hosting this month.

Mass communications freshman Courtney Mattison said she committed to attending the trip because she thought it was a great way to do something productive with her spring break.

LUCAP will provide partial funding for the trip. Participants will host a car wash next month at Holy Name of Jesus Church to supplement additional costs.

“I’m extremely excited for the trip – for the main reason that I am giving back and doing something meaningful with my spring break,” Mattison said. “A story of volunteerism rather than beaches to tell afterwards will also be a much more meaningful story.”

Allison Sickle can be reached at [email protected].