Students choose community service over beaches Emily DeSantis SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE March 10, 2000      Students enrolled in the Alternative Spring Break Program are preparing for a life changing experience as they get ready to depart for their destinations in the South on March 11. These students are forgoing the traditional reveries associated with spring break to work side by side with self-help groups to address pressing community needs.      The 104 students are part of a nationwide Alternative Spring Break Program. The campus initiative is currently in its third year. Groups will be setting out to four different locations this year including four in Virginia: Ivanhoe, New Road, Westmore-land County, and Caroline County. Groups will also be traveling to Birmingham, Alabama; St. Helena Island, South Carolina; and Lumberton and Cherokee, North Carolina. Students have traveled to New Road, Ivanhoe, Birmingham and St. Helena Island in previous years and have reported successful trips.      Students this year are just as hopeful. "[Last year's trip] changed my life and how I view the world," said Brandy Curtis, a sophomore Anthropology and Pre-Med major. "I was introduced to issues such as development, racism, classism and white privilege... I hope that everyone [on this year's trip] will come back with a drive to create change."      Shannon Quirk, a sophomore English and Psychology major, had similar sentiments. "I hope to make a difference in the community and to learn something from the community."      The ASB Program differs from other schools in that students must enroll in one of two classes, "Grass-roots Community Development," taught by Art Keene of the Anthropology Department, or "Spirituality, Culture and Social Justice in the American South," taught by the Rev. Kent Higgins of the Inter-Religious Project, to participate. The classes offer students the opportunity to learn about impoverished communities' struggles and strategies to make the community they reside in a better place to live, and to develop relationships with the other members of the group with whom they will be traveling.      "Students form a true learning community in which they are not only learners but teachers as well," said Keene. "When we go south for spring break, we have the opportunity to apply the things we've been learning in the classroom to real world situations."      This year the students were required to attend a retreat weekend at the Unitarian Church in Greenfield. The retreat allowed the students to bond with people in their trips and to interact with people from the other groups.      "The bonding that went on during the retreat helped us," said Curtis. "We're 10 steps ahead of where we were last year." ASB strives to develop a sense of community among its participants so that they will be better equipped to aid the communities they will travel to in two weeks.