March 2025, Beyond Bama, a student engagement team affiliated with the Center for Service and Leadership, re-launched alternative break service trips. The mission of Beyond Bama is to offer students all-inclusive, short term service trips domestically and abroad during university breaks. Student teams work alongside community organizations to focus on issues such as literacy, poverty, homelessness, and environmental issues. For the first time since 2020, Beyond Bama took 21 students to serve in Memphis, TN and Orange Beach, AL during their spring break. The trips were led by UA student leaders who receive training from the Center for Service and Leadership. These leaders kept the team on schedule, managed logistics of the trip, served as role models to their peers, and lead reflections at the end of each day. Students also participated in some outings to learn more about the history and culture of the places they visited. In Memphis, students visited the STAX Music museum and National Civil Right Museum. At the Gulf Coast, students visited the University of Alabama’s Dauphin Island Sea Lab on Dauphin Island, AL. Haley Carpenter, Assistant Director in the Center for Service and Leadership, advises the Beyond Bama program and says they plan to offer trips again during Spring Break 2026. Locations of the trips will be announced during the fall semester.