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Spring break in Puerto Rico? After Mar铆a, that means 'rebuild,' not 'relax'

Six months after the Category 4 hurricane hit, recovery remains slow. From Boy Scouts to Harvard Law, many students from the US mainland are spending vacation time volunteering here: helping to clear debris, navigate FEMA forms, and restore damaged forests.

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Alfredo Sosa/Staff
Students clear an area of non-native plants in order to grow seedlings on March 13, 2018 in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Six months after hurricane Maria, students from the University of Northern Colorado spent their spring break working on the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Preserve.

Mallory Gibson, a music-business major at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), has spent her junior-year spring break surrounded by sand, surf, and palm trees. But her experience has been pretty far from typical.听

鈥淭his is exactly what I wanted to do,鈥 says Ms. Gibson, who moments earlier put down a nearly two-foot-long machete that she was using to whack apart a fallen palm tree. She鈥檚 covered in a thin film of dirt and, like everyone else here, drips sweat under the midday sun. Just a few hundred yards away the Caribbean laps the sandy shore of the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Reserve, but she won鈥檛 dip her toes in the water until her seven-hour work day wraps.

鈥淲e鈥檙e tackling a small drop in the large ocean of things that need to be done鈥 to help Puerto Rico get back on its feet, she says.听

Gibson is the co-leader of a 22-person team from her university that traveled to Puerto Rico to volunteer six months after hurricane Mar铆a, cleaning up debris and helping regenerate parts of the forest destroyed by the Category 4 storm.听

These college students aren鈥檛 alone in eschewing traditional spring break activities like sunbathing and partying to help Puerto Rico recover. From the more than 100 Boy Scouts from across the mainland US helping to rebuild a scout camp in Guajataka to 31 Harvard law students providing pro-bono legal aid and humanitarian work, spring break in Puerto Rico this year is a far cry from lazing on the beach.听

In 鈥渟chool, you tend to forget what real life is about,鈥 says Kevin Ratana Patumwat, a second-year Harvard Law student. He鈥檚 come to better understand the disaster, which, as of March 9, still had left nearly 150,000homes in the dark. 鈥淚鈥檝e met people who can鈥檛 gather the proper documents [for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA] because the roof of their house is caved in from Mar铆a,鈥 he says.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff
Harvard law student Kevin Ratana Patumwat helps hurricane victims sort legal documents at a FEMA help center on March 14, 2018 in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. Six months after hurricane Maria hit, students spent their spring break helping victims navigate the FEMA system.

Students dedicating their time off to working with communities in need bucks the labels and stereotypes of selfishness thrown at young people. And it鈥檚 part of a larger trend in the United States that鈥檚 slowly grown over the past 25 years: students using time off to serve in a way that builds community engagement, empathy, and leadership.

鈥淲e meet students really interested in getting involved in things bigger than themselves,鈥 says Samantha Giacobozzi, executive director of Break Away, a national organization that trains students at universities across the country to organize and execute alternative breaks.听

鈥淭hey may still be taking selfies, but they鈥檙e really remarkable in the ways in which they get involved鈥 in their communities and current events, she says, referring to both the notable uptick in alternative breaks over the past decade and youth-led movements like activist for gun control after the Parkland, Fla. school shooting. 鈥淏ecause they鈥檙e plugged in [online], they know a lot about what鈥檚 happening in the world around them.鈥

Working vacation

Two students in floppy sun hats heave part of a tree trunk onto the back of a flatbed truck on a recent Tuesday afternoon. They high-five and giggle before turning around to pick up another load.

The nature reserve where they鈥檙e volunteering to clear out palm trees and storm debris in order to plant native-tree saplings is on the eastern coast of the island, about 20 miles away from where Mar铆a first made landfall. The trees will help revitalize parts of the reserve that were destroyed by the hurricane, and could one day serve as an additional natural barrier to protect locals from battering storms.

鈥淭he work they鈥檝e done in two days would take us about 1-1/2 or two weeks to complete,鈥 says Antonio Bulnes, a reserve staff member working with the students. The nongovernmental organization Para La Naturaleza, which manages the reserve, has a goal of planting 1 million trees in the wake of the storm. 鈥淪ince Mar铆a, we鈥檝e needed more help than usual,鈥 says Mr. Bulnes.

Robin Chadwick, a junior studying nursing at UNC, was feeling frustrated after hurricane Mar铆a. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like how the government handled the response,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 kept seeing news stories about how there wasn鈥檛 enough support or how people are still living without water and electricity.鈥 She felt helpless, she says.

The storm caused roughly $100 billion in damages to Puerto Rico, exposing deep-seated challenges like an out-of-date power grid and flimsy home construction. Even power restoration is still considered in the 鈥渆mergency鈥 phase, just three months before hurricane season will rear up again.

When Ms. Chadwick learned about the trip via a school-wide email, 鈥淚 knew I had to do it.鈥 In the past, she spent her spring breaks traveling to cities like New York for fun or working to finance her studies.

Interest in volunteering in Puerto Rico has shot up since the storm, according to Community Collaborations International (CCI), the Nevada-based organization that helped coordinate the lodging, travel logistics, and volunteer itinerary for UNC鈥檚 spring break.

鈥淲e had groups travel in January and there are a lot of people going this summer 鈥 we鈥檝e never had summer projects in Puerto Rico before,鈥 says Steve Boisvert, founder of CCI, which works directly with universities to help organize alternative breaks.

Many point to another infamous storm, hurricane Katrina in 2005, as driving a surge of interest in dedicating vacation to serving others. More than a quarter of alternative break programs operating in partnership with Break Away, for example, were launched between 2002 and 2011, according to a 2016 Break Away report. That鈥檚 the biggest period of growth over the 26-year snapshot they track.

Increasingly, there are also requirements in high schools across the country 鈥 and expectations from college admission panels 鈥 for students to do community service, starting at a younger age.

This generation 鈥渉as that background and rhythm of commitment to service in their bones,鈥 says Melody Porter, director of the Office of Community Engagement at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

The term Alternative Spring Break has become a catch-all for service during vacations, an alternative to the party scene long associated with college spring break. What sets a formal 鈥淎lternative Spring Break鈥 (ASB) apart from the service trips that religious organizations or youth groups have been leading for decades is the student leadership in planning the work and travel, and the inclusion of active reflection around the experience, says the Reverend Porter, who co-authored a book released in 2015 on alternative spring breaks.

These trips 鈥渙pen up a world that otherwise wouldn鈥檛 be available to students: understanding social issues in new ways, developing relationships with people. Our ultimate hope and what we see happen over and over again reliably is that people come to understand themselves and their positions in the community differently鈥 after participating in an ASB, she says. Most schools hold regular meetings in the lead-up to a trip to discuss the project's bigger-picture context, communicate with community partners, and dissect important topics like the risks of 鈥渉elicopter-ing鈥 in somewhere to try and be a savior, versus working alongside locals who know best what their community needs.听

Listening with respect

Across the island, in Puerto Rico鈥檚 mountainous center, Harvard Law students Javier Secaria and Mr. Patumwat听set up shop at a FEMA center in the Centro de Bellas Artes听in Barranquitas. Mr. Secaria puts his orange backpack on one of the many white plastic chairs filling the vast room, and pulls out a small cardboard sign that reads, 鈥渓egal orientation desk.鈥 Those lining up for help have driven miles along the steep, winding, one-lane roads to come here today.听

The first- and second-year law students are accompanying Walter H. Gonz谩lez Collazo, a lawyer with The Foundation听Fund for Access to Justice听in Puerto Rico. Mr. Gonz谩lez and other lawyers like him across the island are working pro-bono to help individuals navigate FEMA bureaucracy in order to try and appeal their denied cases. He bounces between 10 FEMA centers in different small mountainous towns each week, working Monday through Saturday.

Patumwat and Secaria鈥檚 work isn鈥檛 rocket science. They鈥檙e conducting pre-interviews with individuals in order to gather their names and addresses, and to understand what step of the application process might have thrown them off track. But law 鈥 even in Spanish 鈥 is a language these young students speak, and their legal know-how allows Gonz谩lez to tackle nearly double his typical tally of cases each day.听

鈥淚n the legal profession, as in others, there鈥檚 an ethic we try to teach of service and the idea that with the privileges of education and opportunity come a responsibility of service to others,鈥 says Andrew Crespo, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School who is Puerto Rican. He helped launch the Hurricane Mar铆a Legal Assistance project last fall.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 need specialized skills to help. I鈥檝e realized if you are respectful and if you鈥檙e an active listener, you can give someone dignity,鈥 says Patumwat. 鈥淎nd when someone feels abandoned after a storm like this, just listening can really help.鈥

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