IMPACT SERVICE BREAKS
Serving the Southeast for over thirty years.
Each Fall and Spring Break, UGA students travel to locations across the Southeastern United States to learn with and work alongside organizations at the forefront of community-created solutions through the IMPACT Service Breaks program.
IMPACT Service Breaks offers a once-in-a-lifetime, completely immersive experience to live and volunteer within a new community during a University break. Your IMPACT team partners with your host community to manage and execute a project that addresses needs that will directly benefit that place. Our partnerships with nonprofits and organizations in the host city allow our trips to be highly aligned with the needs and goals of their citizens, engaging you and your IMPACT Team in a leadership experience like no other.
Students Leading Positive Change
Make lifelong memories.
We know communities are multi-faceted; therefore, when you visit and volunteer communities with IMPACT Service Breaks, your IMPACT Leaders incorporate events into your schedule where you can engage with and explore your host community. Visit museums, tour botanical gardens, or maybe even meet a sea turtle undergoing rehabilitation on Tybee Island.
Find your community.
Each IMPACT Service Break trip consists of a team of 16. This high ratio of IMPACT Leaders to Volunteers means that you are a crucial part of the team’s success. Working alongside your fellow IMPACT Volunteers is a great way to learn new perspectives and make new friends.
You’ll meet your two IMPACT Site Leaders at IMPACT Service Breaks Orientation, and you’ll also get to know your fellow IMPACT Volunteers while traveling to your host city, visiting fun places, cooking dinner, and working with volunteer projects.
Program Benefits
- Volunteer for 40+ hours benefiting local and regional communities
- Receive 1 Experiential Learning credit
- Trip Fee includes housing, most meals, IMPACT Volunteer t-shirt, and community engagement activities
- Pre-and post-trip events for all Volunteers, including IMPACT Orientation and IMPACT Class Photo & Showcase
Access to leadership opportunities for all students is a priority for our IMPACT Service Break trips. Therefore, payment plans and scholarships are both available for students through the application portal.
Lead IMPACT Service Breaks
Recruitment for Spring 2025 leaders is open now! Benefits of leading IMPACT Spring Break Trips include significant leadership and project management experience, allowing you to bring this program to life! Fees are also waived for all IMPACT Leaders.
Frequently Asked Questions
The service that each IMPACT team will be doing is unique to each trip, since it is affected by the trip location and the issue that each trip addresses. Your site leader will communicate the kind of service your team is planning to complete before the trip so that you can request any accommodations and plan to pack clothes that will make it comfortable for you to engage completely in service. Previous service included cooking food for people experiencing homelessness, staffing events, cleaning up a lake beach, and weeding a community garden.
Every trip is unique, but typically, you can expect to do between 4-8 hours of direct service each day of your trip. Your Site Leaders will leave ample time for breaks, and there will be scheduled cultural experiences so you can see the local area! Reflection is held at the end of every day, which gives you the opportunity to personally reflect on the day as well as communicate with your teammates about connections that you are seeing related to the social issue focus.
Lodging for each trip is different, but all sites will have necessities like kitchens, showers, etc. Additionally, most food will be cooked or prepared onsite by participants (like you!), and these menus will be planned ahead of time by your site leaders. Please provide any allergies, dietary needs and/or restrictions in this application so that our site leaders can best plan out these menus. You can also bring or purchase snacks if you would like!
We are more than happy to accommodate for dietary restrictions and sensitivities for our IMPACT Volunteers! Add these allergies and needs to your application, and you can also chat with ELS Staff to ensure you have the best experience possible.
No. The IMPACT program is a substance-free, tobacco-free, and alcohol-free experience. Regardless of age, Volunteers and Site Leaders will not be able to do so while on the trip under any circumstances. Failure to comply will result in formal dismissal from the trip, where they will be required to pay for their trip back to Athens.
We will meet at a common location to load into the van, and your IMPACT Leaders and/or the UGA staff will drive! Due to the nature of the trips, we are all required to travel together.
We are so excited to hear that you enjoyed your experience and want to take the next step in IMPACT involvement! Spring Break site leader applications are open now!