As an emerging leader on campus, you’re always trying to find creative and meaningful ways to enhance your leadership skills. If you’re looking for something fun, immersive, and purposeful to do this spring break, alternative spring breaks are a great place to start. 

Teach For America’s Impact Spring Break is an all-expenses-paid program designed for college sophomores and juniors who are interested in service projects directly connected to community needs. 

Here are four ways Impact Spring Break can transform your week off into a leadership experience you will never forget.

1. Experience the United States Like You’ve Never Seen it Before

Spring break isn’t spring break without the chance to travel! During your time at Impact Spring Break, you’ll be assigned to one of TFA’s 51 regions. You never know, you could land in a city like New Orleans, Tulsa, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. and see it in a whole new light. 

As you maneuver through the community, you’ll learn about the region, its rich history, and the historical and current factors that play into influencing or hindering the progress in that particular city.  

Did we mention that this trip is all-expenses-paid? Yup! We know what it’s like to stretch a dollar during college. That’s why Teach For America covers all program-related expenses during your time at Impact Spring Break, including travel, meals, and lodging.

2. Build Your Leadership Skills and Community Service Hours

Impact Spring Break allows you to accumulate community service hours while developing your servant leadership skills. By participating in hands-on service projects, you’ll become closer to your students and discover the scope of their needs. Within a week, you’ll use skills like decisiveness, effective communication, prioritizing, and problem-solving to identify opportunity gaps, assist in facilitating or developing solutions to address prominent issues, and create an ecosystem of support for children

Teach For America invites college students each spring to join Impact Spring Break. In 2019, participants traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma to engage in hands-on work that will positively affect students and their families for years to come, while forging meaningful relationships with one another.

3. Gain “Real-World Experience” You Can Actually Use 

Education intersects with a variety of social inequities that affect how our children learn. Poverty, unemployment, food deserts, deportation, intense flooding or uncontrollable forest fires caused by climate change all directly influence a child’s ability to focus, engage, and succeed in the classroom. That’s why numerous TFA alumni use their teaching experience and student stories to launch social impact careers in fields like law, healthcare, business, policy, and much more. 

At Impact Spring Break, you too can utilize the exposure you gain from working hands-on with students and community members to dive deeper into the issues that stir you up. With the help of your peers and TFA teachers, you’ll quickly establish a core set of skills and a better sense of purpose that will guide you in making a long-term impact in the real world. 

For more perspective, Ernesto Godinez (Charlotte-Piedmont Triad ’19) recalls how his Impact Spring Break experience reshaped his point of view on education’s impact and his calling to the classroom: 

“The project gave me a new perspective because we go through daily life not recognizing the challenges other people may face, but we must be mindful of what people are going through and continue to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome. Impact took a unique route, showing us that there are voiceless people everywhere and we must be that voice and support system for those who are not able to do so on their own. [This] trip solidified my passion for education and heightened my drive to pursue a role that will end education inequity.” 

4. Cultivate Connections with Changemakers From Across the Country

What’s a spring break experience without new friends?! Impact Spring Break gives you the opportunity to make connections and cultivate relationships with your students and their families, fellow participants, local TFA teachers, school admins, and other community members. 

As you mingle with change agents across the country, your ability to collaborate and team-build will grow, which positions you to become a better leader for your college campus and the communities you serve. Expanding your network also provides opportunities for mentorship, job offers, and the ability to move quickly when you’re looking for purpose-driven thought partners to champion causes you’re passionate about.

If you’re ready to make a difference this spring break by giving your time to enhance and advance the greater good, sign up for Impact Spring Break today!