TRAVEL INSIDER

For this party over spring break, bring your own hammer

Student volunteers earn credits, see exotic places and make friends while helping to build houses and conserve wildlife.

By Jane Engle, Times Staff Writer
12:00 AM PST, February 20, 2005

John KINDER was cagey about what happened on spring break two years ago.

"I had a good time" was all he would tell me about his visit to Panama City Beach, Fla., a popular stop on the party circuit.

But this spring break, the sophomore at Indiana University in Bloomington plans to pursue a different beach activity: studying sea turtles as a volunteer on a conservation project in Costa Rica.

"I didn't want to wake up each day with a hangover," he joked.

Kinder is among a small but growing number of college students signing up for alternatives to the beer-and-beach busts that are spring break staples.

These students say volunteer trips help them make new friends, see exotic places and burnish résumés with real-life experiences. They often earn college credit too.

Because Kinder's trip, organized by the university, is educational, he said, his mother will finance it. The trip could cost as much as $1,000.

"Otherwise, I'd have to pay for it," said Kinder, who is majoring in environmental management.

Did I mention that the student volunteers also help make the world a better place? They build homes for the poor, clear debris from park trails, help protect endangered species and much more.

Each spring, dozens of students from USC, for instance, journey to a Navajo reservation near Bluff, Utah, to paint houses, said Melissa Gaeke, director of the USC Volunteer Center.

On the center's other trips, students can build furniture for a new school in Guatemala or plant trees on Isla Mujeres, near Cancún, Mexico, among other activities.

Participants pay $125 to $600 to go on the trips and get no college credit, Gaeke said.

Some return again and again.

Two years ago, Manuel Lopez, freshly transferred to USC, signed up for the Isla Mujeres trip to meet new people. It worked.

"It's intense," he said. "You come back almost as best friends."

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