For These Terriers, Spring Break in Florida Was All about Volunteering

Photo Gallery: Students partner with Nature Conservancy during Alternative Service Breaks trip to Hobe Sound

Photo: Group photo a 14 students and one older chaperone. They all wear purple short-sleeved shirts and a variety of hats as they cheer and laugh. They sit and stand around a group of sedimentary rocks on a sandy beach in front of a large body of water on a sunny day.

The 14 students who traveled to Blowing Rocks Preserve in Hobe Sound, Fla., for their Alternative Spring Breaks trip pose for a group photo with trip chaperone Tim Hegan, residence hall director for Upper Bay State Road, during a break in their work. The group spent the week planting grass and mangrove trees, removing invasive plant species, and assisting Nature Conservancy employees with various lagoon and seashore maintenance projects.

Student Life

For These Terriers, Spring Break in Florida Was All about Volunteering

Photo Gallery: Students partner with Nature Conservancy during Alternative Service Breaks trip to Hobe Sound

March 16, 2023
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For more than 20 years, Alternative Service Breaks (ASB), a program run out of BU’s Community Service Center, has provided Terriers with the opportunity to travel across the country during spring break to engage with nonprofits that focus on animal rights, environmental conservation, health and disabilities, and housing and homelessness, among other areas. The trips are designed to foster connections between students and various communities through meaningful service. 

Last week, 60 students took part in this year’s ASB trips. They worked at a supportive living community for the blind in Chicago and an animal shelter in New Orleans; built housing for the elderly in Macon, Ga., and assisted with environmental projects in the Shawnee National Forest in Shawnee, Ill., and Nature Conservancy staff working at Blowing Rocks Preserve in Hobe Sound, Fla.

Cydney Scott, senior photojournalist with BU’s Marketing and Communications department, joined the 14 student volunteers and chaperone Tim Hegan, residence hall director for Upper Bay State Road who traveled to Hobe Sound. She photographed them as they worked with Nature Conservancy employees to remove invasive species, plant mangrove trees and strand grass, and assist with various lagoon and seashore maintenance projects. She also captured the students during their off-hours as they relaxed and prepared meals in their digs—two houses owned by the Bureau of Land Management—and explored nearby Jupiter, Fla., including Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, which was built in 1860 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They even made a quick day trip to Miami before heading home on March 12. 

Despite sharing a bathroom with 15 people, the students say the service trip proved to be an amazing experience.

“My purpose for this trip was to learn something new about the environment and to throw myself into a (situation) where I didn’t know anyone. I haven’t been able to do that since I was a freshman,” says Rachel Li (CDS’24). “It was a fresh way for me to jump into a new place with new people and see where it takes me. It turned out it was really great!”

Photo: Trip chaperone and BU Residence Hall Director Tim Hegan, from left, trip coordinator Rohin Bajaj (ENG’25), Chloe Rowan (CAS’25), InihAbasi Sunday (CAS’24), and trip coordinator Ari Burns (CAS’25) pull invasive arrowhead vine from an area of The Nature Conservancy which borders a resident’s property as part of their Alternative Spring Break work March 8. A group of young adults wearing purple shirts and pants hold and fill a large bag of dried grass. Various other students cut shrubs and brush with large cutters. An older white man wearing a rainbow tie-dye shirt helps with the gathering.
Trip chaperone and BU Residence Hall Director Tim Hegan (left), trip coordinator Rohin Bajaj (ENG’25), volunteers Chloe Rowan (CAS’25) and InihAbasi Sunday (CAS’24), and trip coordinator Ari Burns (CAS’25) pull invasive arrowhead vines from Blowing Rocks Preserve, which is maintained by The Nature Conservancy. Judith Archbold, South Florida Land Conservation Steward, not pictured, says that the students’ work is invaluable. “There’s a lot of stewardship that needs to be done, including the removal of a lot of invasive plants which are fast growing, block the sunlight, and keep native plants from growing. So the more people, the better, because it takes a lot of time to remove invasive plants.”
Photo: Close up shot of a white person's leg as they place nude-colored band-aids onto a large scratch on their shin.

Chloe Rowan (CAS’25) deals with one of the hazards of the day’s volunteer work—scratches from thorns and vines the students were removing. They also had to be vigilant about using bug spray and applying sunblock throughout the week.

Photo: Two young dark-skinned students, one wearing a purple shirt and the other wearing a grey sweatshirt and cap, work together to cut and remove a large invasive palm plant.

Jamaal Compton (CAS’26) (left) and ASB program manager Nadira Sivabalan (CAS’23) work together to remove and dispose of invasive plants at Blowing Rocks Preserve. Compton says the trip may help him choose a major, for which he is currently undecided. “The work we did has made me want to take more botany or environmental classes,” Compton says, adding that he plans to look into environmental internships in the Boston area as a result of his ASB experience.

Photo: Three young adults smile as they reach forward and look through glass trinkets in a brightly lit and crowded trinkets shop.
Trip coordinator Rafaele Dimaggio (Questrom’25) (left), Guoyangzi “Angela” An (Questrom’25), and Kate Lewis (ENG’25) explore Sea Treasures, a gift shop in Jupiter, Fla., after a long day spent pulling invasive weeds. “It’s amazing how many kids came solo,” says Dimaggio, who was concerned about the students feeling comfortable around each other. “Everyone had so much fun and clicked so well!” Dimaggio says that by the end of the week conversations had evolved from surface chitchat to deeper personal conversations.
Photo: A young white woman naps in a beige arm chair in a darkened room. In the background, a lit kitchen with another young adult wearing a purple shirt is seen.

Kate Lewis (ENG’25) falls fast asleep in the group’s lodgings after a long day of work. The students volunteered Monday through Thursday, but Friday was reserved as a free day for exploring the surrounding area.

Photo: a group of diverse young adults sit and stand around a large wooden table filled with plates of chicken and waffles. The students serve themselves food, as they chat and laugh.

The ASB students gather around the dining table for a “breakfast for dinner” meal of waffles, pancakes, and turkey bacon.

Photo: Two young white people stand waist deep in a large body of water and hold up seine netting with one hand as they raise their other arms.
Kate Lewis (ENG’25) (left) and Kat Harmon (COM’26) take a turn using seine netting to collect some of the creatures that reside in the Indian River Lagoon at Blowing Rocks Preserve. Harmon says she signed up for this particular ASB trip to help address the threat of rising oceans due to climate change. She says their work “has been a way to put a dent in that and learn more about (those issues) and help out in some small way.”
Photo: Two tan young men wearing swim trunks carefully scoop up fish in a net held up by other volunteers into a large, orange bucket.
Trip coordinators Rafaele Dimaggio (Questrom’25) (left) and Rohin Bajaj (ENG’25) carefully scoop up the fish they collected at the Indian River Lagoon for closer inspection as Chloe Rowan (CAS’25) (right) looks on.
Photo: A person holds up a fish in a large clear bin filled with water collected by the students while another person holds up a fish glossary to identify it. Various other students look on.

Kate Tillery (left), outreach and volunteer specialist with The Nature Conservancy, holds a fish collected by the students while trip coordinator Ari Burns (CAS’25) consults a fish glossary to identify it.

Photo: Three people lean in to get a closer look at a hand holding up a small, grey fighting conch.

Trip chaperone and BU Residence Hall Director Tim Hegan (left), Kasandra Kue-Rojas (CAS’24), and InihAbasi Sunday (CAS’24) lean in to learn more about the fighting conch the group collected from the Indian River Lagoon. The Nature Conservancy’s outreach and volunteer specialist Kate Tillery (far left) tells them all she knows about the creature before they return it to the lagoon. “This Hobe Sound trip was one of my favorite ASB adventures in my tenure as a chaperone for a Community Service Center program,” says Hegan, who has served on ASB trips since 2005.

Photo: A view through a tunnel of mangroves of students pulling invasive St. Augustine grass from a pathway that runs parallel to the Blowing Rocks Beach in Hobe Sound, Fla.
A view through a tunnel of mangroves of students pulling invasive St. Augustine grass from a pathway that runs parallel to the Blowing Rocks Beach in Hobe Sound, Fla.
Photo: A young white woman wearing a purple shirt and grey bucket hat is pictured pulling invasive St. Augustine grass from a Blowing Rocks Beach path. Other students in similar purple shirts do the same around her.
“It’s incredibly cheap to go on this trip, and I went somewhere I’ve never been before. I’ve always wanted to do volunteer excursions, and this one involved restoring native species and removing invasive ones,” says Chloe Rowan (CAS’25), pictured here pulling invasive St. Augustine grass from a Blowing Rocks Beach path. “It’s nice to return to school feeling like you did something significant,” she says. 
Photo: The students walk Blowing Rocks Beach to pick up trash during their last day of service, Thursday, March 9. Various students wearing swim suits and swim trunks and holding large orange buckets pick up trash as they walk along a sunny beach.
The students walk Blowing Rocks Beach to pick up trash during their last day of service, Thursday, March 9.
Photo: The students walk Blowing Rocks Beach to pick up trash during their last day of service, Thursday, March 9. Various students wearing purple shirts and holding large orange buckets pick up trash as they walk along a sunny beach. The large letters "ASB" are drawn in the sand.
Some of the students pause from work to leave their mark—albeit temporary,—on the beach during their cleanup.
Photo: A young man wearing a purple shirt poses in a standing starfish fashion on top of a sedimentary rock formation as another student wearing the same purple shirt holds up their phone to take a photo. A large body of water and beach can be seen behind the student posing.
Beach cleanup complete, Sohail Lokhandwalla (CAS’24) snaps a photo of his friend Rohin Bajaj (ENG’25) in the middle of a sedimentary rock formation of Anastasia limestone on Blowing Rocks Beach. Blowing Rocks Preserve harbors the largest outcropping of the limestone along the Atlantic Coast. Also known as coquina, from the Spanish for “cockleshell,” Anastasia limestone is composed primarily of shell and coral fragments, fossils, and sand. Small fossils are clearly visible in the rockfaces and are most commonly the shells of small clams and oysters or pieces of a large snail called Busycon.
Photo: A group of students dance with arms going up and down in front of them in a small kitchen.
Kate Lewis (ENG’25) (left), Rohin Bajaj (ENG’25), Sabrina Latham (CAS’26), and Sohail Lokhandwalla (CAS’24) have an impromptu dance party during a lull in their dinner preparations, while Jamaal Compton (CAS’26) cooks at the stove. The students took turns with meal preparations; those who weren’t cooking were on clean-up detail. ”I personally didn’t cook before this trip, so I’m learning from my peers,” says Bajaj. “We cook together and dance in the kitchen. We share stories and it’s a great sense of camaraderie.”
  • Photo: Three students are shown walking up a small, metal spiral staircase in a lighthouse.
  • Photo: A light red lighthouse is shown during a brightly lit day.

With the volunteer part of their trip behind them, the students enjoy their free day on Friday, March 10. They start by climbing 105 cast iron stairs to take in the view from the top of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, which was visible from their lodgings. Completed in 1860, the lighthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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For These Terriers, Spring Break in Florida Was All about Volunteering

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  • Cydney Scott

    Photojournalist

    cydney scott

    Cydney Scott has been a professional photographer since graduating from the Ohio University VisCom program in 1998. She spent 10 years shooting for newspapers, first in upstate New York, then Palm Beach County, Fla., before moving back to her home city of Boston and joining BU Photography. Profile

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