Spring Break looks different for TCU students who choose Alternative Breaks. Rather than stepping away from responsibility, they step toward it, trading time off for something harder to come by on a typical campus itinerary: the chance to show up somewhere that needs them. This past spring, a group of students traveled to New Orleans, where they spent a week serving, learning, and moving through a city that has spent decades rebuilding itself.
Alternative Breaks is a program of TCU’s Office of Service & Leadership (OSL), offering immersive service experiences during Fall and Spring Break. The trips are student-led from start to finish, which means the work begins long before anyone boards a plane. For Sophia Figliola, an Economics major serving as Director for TCU’s Alternative Breaks, that reality set in early. “Planning the Alternative Break trip took a lot of work behind the scenes,” she said. “There were a lot of details to figure out, like coordinating with service sites and making sure our group felt prepared. It could be stressful at times, but it was really rewarding to see everything come together once we got there.”
Audrey Hawkins, a Movement Science major and the program’s Executive Director, found the planning process equally demanding and equally formative. “Planning the Alternative Break trip was definitely challenging, but incredibly rewarding,” she said. “It involved countless brainstorming sessions, long meetings, and strong collaboration. Through this experience, I gained a deeper understanding of what it takes to lead a complex program and learned how to quickly adapt when unexpected challenges arose.”
In New Orleans, the group partnered with SOUL (Sustaining Our Urban Landscape), an organization working to restore the city’s tree canopy after years of storm damage, including the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina. The work was physical, and the weather was uncooperative, but neither dampened the experience. “Despite the unusually cold weather and physically demanding work, I loved the opportunity to connect with other TCU students through a shared commitment to service,” Hawkins said. “There was something really satisfying about the hands-on work. We even got pretty good at making the trees look professionally planted!”
Not all of the service looked like outdoor labor. For Figliola, some of the most meaningful moments came from quieter work at a local nursing home. “I helped clean wheelchairs, and one of the staff members shared that it’s something that tends to fall to the bottom of the priority list even though it really impacts residents’ daily lives,” she said. “I also saw other students giving a resident a manicure and just talking with her, and you could see how much it meant to her by how her face lit up.” Service, the trip kept demonstrating, is as much about presence as it is about output.
The reach of the trip also resonated with students in ways that extended beyond their usual frame of reference. “Expanding TCU’s service efforts beyond the DFW area felt incredibly meaningful,” Hawkins reflected. “There are so many communities across the country that need support, and this experience allowed us to make an impact in a place we might not otherwise have reached.” From environmental recovery to combating isolation among older adults, the week illustrated how varied and necessary service can be.
Between the service days, students took time to move through the city itself. They explored the French Quarter, wandered Jackson Square, and boarded a jazz dinner riverboat cruise on the Mississippi. They stopped for beignets and coffee, took a ghost tour through the historic streets, and spent evenings together in ways that had nothing to do with any agenda. For Figliola, those unplanned hours mattered just as much as the structured ones. “My favorite part of the trip was the little moments that brought our group together, especially our impromptu Uno tournaments at night,” she said. “That’s when it really felt like everyone relaxed and we got to connect.”
That sense of connection, both within the group and with the people they served, is central to what Alternative Breaks is designed to do. The program is not simply a service trip. It is a leadership development experience built around reflection, relationship, and the kind of growth that is difficult to manufacture in a classroom. As Hawkins put it, “This program offered the chance for students to recognize our role in something much larger than ourselves.”
For students considering getting involved, Alternative Breaks offers an accessible entry point into meaningful service and real leadership. Trips run during both Fall and Spring Break, and no prior experience is required. What the program asks for is simpler than that: a willingness to show up, do the work, and pay attention to what the experience is trying to teach. The New Orleans trip made clear that when students do exactly that, the impact tends to travel home with them.
For students looking to connect more deeply with the DFW community, or for those who know a student searching for a meaningful way to get involved, TCU’s Office of Service & Leadership offers opportunities to serve, build relationships, and make a difference closer to home. Students interested in getting involved in the TCU Alternative Fall Break can sign up here.
