LU Moment: LU students help Puerto Rico during Alternative Spring Break | S9 Ep. 8

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Podcast: S9 Ep. 8
Date: March 24, 2026
Title: LU Moment: LU students help Puerto Rico during Alternative Spring Break | S9 Ep. 8
Host: John Rollins

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JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with Lamar University faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, associate director of community relations and public affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. My guests today were in Puerto Rico just last week, but now they're back in Beaumont at Lamar University and ready to tell us all about Alternative Spring Break today on the podcast. I've got Allie Sanford and Jonah Smith joining me on the show. Welcome to you both.

JONAH SMITH: Thank you for having us.

JOHN: So you know, unless you're in college, obviously, maybe not everybody out there knows what Alternative Spring Break is. So, would you all like to go ahead and start with that?

JONAH: So Alternative Spring Break is a chance for students to travel out of town during their spring break and help a community in a specific location. In the past, they’ve often gone to Biloxi, Mississippi. When I worked in the leadership department, I was part of the planning process, but I never got to attend. I was fortunate to go this year to Puerto Rico, and it was amazing to immerse myself in the community and help out. It’s a great opportunity for students to get out there.

JOHN: Allie, how would you describe it?

ALLIE SANFORD: I would say it’s a really great way for students to not only help a community, but also build leadership skills. It also helped me create a lot of connections, which was a really fun part of the experience for me.

JOHN: I like it—good answers, good answers. So, we’ve got Allie here for the first time, and Jonah is a repeat customer on the podcast, right? Allie, you’re a junior majoring in nutrition and dietetics, correct?

ALLIE: Yes, sir.

JOHN: Fantastic. And Jonah, like I said, no stranger to the podcast—he’s a senior majoring in mechanical engineering and about to graduate.

JONAH: Yes, finally.

JOHN: Hey, that’s fantastic. Engineering takes a while, right?

JONAH: I took my sweet time.

JOHN: You’ve done plenty on this campus, like we mentioned earlier. So, early congratulations on graduating. But let’s take some time and allow you both to introduce yourselves.

JONAH: Go ahead, Allie.

ALLIE: Okay, so as he said, my name is Allie, and I actually just recently changed my major to dietetics. I was in nursing and had just started the program, but then I took a community nutrition course and fell in love with it, so I switched majors. Since then, I’ve been volunteering more, and this spring break trip was obviously a really great opportunity for me.

JOHN: Are you from the area?

ALLIE: I am. I am from Beaumont.

JOHN: Okay, oh, so, yeah, from this area, from this city.

ALLIE: Yes.

JOHN: Okay, awesome. And Jonah, you want to introduce yourself?

JONAH: So I’m Jonah. I’m from Port Neches, Texas, so I’ve been in the area my whole life. I went into Lamar with a general studies degree because I did not know what I wanted to do, and my default was engineering. So I ended up doing engineering, and it’s fun and all, and it’s going to do me really well. But I think my favorite part of Lamar so far has been the leadership and the extracurriculars I’ve been involved with, which led me to this Puerto Rico trip. I owe a lot of who I am today to that involvement. So, yeah.

JOHN: Awesome. And we’ll get into a little bit later what y’all are involved in on campus, because I know you both take part in a lot here beyond your classes, right? So let’s jump back over to Alternative Spring Break. Allie, let’s start with you—tell me a little bit about your experience in Puerto Rico.

ALLIE: Okay, so I'm going to start with my favorite part, because I think that's so important.

JOHN: That's the part that gets you excited, right? You’re passionate about it.

ALLIE: Obviously, we did the fun stuff, like the mural tour, but my favorite part was seeing how important community is—especially because Puerto Rico is an island. Mutual support is so important there because it can take a long time for them to get resources and imports. Everywhere we went, we got to see this involvement in the community. Everyone helps everyone—neighbors, friends, even strangers—and that was really interesting to me. I think a good example of that would be when we went and helped plant a bunch of sunflowers. That was not only helping a small business, but over time it also supports native plants and things like that.

JOHN: Yeah, and you know, you talk about communities coming together, working together, in Southeast Texas we know a lot about that because we have our own version of natural disasters in the form of hurricanes. Is the reason y’all chose Puerto Rico because of Hurricane Maria?

ALLIE: Hurricane Maria was a big part of it, yeah. We heard from a Hurricane Maria speaker, and she actually told us that some people on the island didn’t have electricity for over a year. We shared some of our experiences with flooding, like Harvey.

JOHN: Yeah, and our experience was for what, maybe a week, maybe two. A year is insane.

ALLIE: It was crazy to have no water for a week, but I can't imagine six months plus.

 JOHN: And the resiliency you must have to be able to bounce back from something like that.

ALLIE: Yeah.

JOHN: Well, you know, I was kind of looking this up just to refresh my memory—this happened in 2017, which is exactly when Hurricane Harvey happened here in Southeast Texas. So the impacts are obviously still ongoing. And Jonah, what about you? How was the experience in Puerto Rico for you?

JONAH: Yeah, like Allie said, I was very surprised by how fun the service was and how meaningful it was to contribute to the community. When you go to places like this—or think about trips to places like Puerto Rico—you often focus on the fun things, like the beaches and maybe the nightlife. But serving the community, especially at the dunes where we went and created these structures to help with natural disaster relief, was incredible. I wasn’t aware of how badly they get hit, because, again, when you think about these places, you just think about the fun parts. But they’re suffering a lot of damage from these natural disasters, so it was very cool to be a part of making those barriers.

JOHN: Yeah, well, we know a lot about being close to large bodies of water—I mean, like we said earlier, Hurricane Harvey and all that. So I do want to ask you both: what was your greatest takeaway from your time being a part of Alternative Spring Break this year?

ALLIE: I would say my greatest takeaway has to be—well, I know I keep coming back to the word—community.

JOHN: No, I love that.

ALLIE: But I think it is so important, especially—obviously, I’m a big foodie, so everything comes back to food. After the hurricane, Puerto Rico, which used to rely heavily on imports, is now returning to more farm-to-market practices. Originally, they were very farm-to-market, but disasters pushed them away from that. Now, they’re coming together as a community once again. I think that should happen everywhere—especially here, as we start opening more farmers markets and initiatives like that. It’s so important that we support each other.

JOHN: Love that. What about you, Jonah?

JONAH: A big takeaway for me was—again, going back to the fun part—don’t just go to a place to do the fun things, really.

JOHN: Yeah.

JONAH: When you go to a different place, get involved with the community. Learn about their history, their politics, and what makes these people who they are. You’re going to have a much better appreciation for the trip, and you’ll get to immerse yourself in the culture.

JOHN: Y’all did it the right way for sure. So, something I want to mention, and I’ll go really quick because this podcast is not about me: three days ago, a Facebook memory popped up from March 15, 2018. I worked for United Way at the time, and helped coordinate an Alternative Spring Break with Howard University from Washington, D.C. It was so much fun. They came about eight months after Hurricane Harvey hit our community and were helping in homes that flooded in Lumberton and Beaumont. It was just an incredible experience. The timing of this really hit me when I saw that Facebook memory. What you are doing is great, and thank you to your advisors and the individuals who went with you, such as Nicole Burton and Haley Tyson. I know they were part of this trip as well, so we’re glad to have people like that on our campus who support and join our students in these endeavors. So, tell me a little bit more about both of your experiences as students here at Lamar University—especially you, Jonah, since you’re about to graduate. If you want to go ahead and start, then we’ll jump over to Allie.

JONAH: So, where to start? Okay, the first thing I got involved with when I got to Lamar—I came here during the pandemic—and I saw how the Orientation Team operated. I thought, “Okay, this is something I should look into.” I got involved with Orientation in the summer of 2021, and I think that was the thing that opened doors for me in college. From there, I started getting involved in the leadership department. I found myself participating in student government, housing, residence life, and all the way up to now, where I’ve kind of scaled back a little, but I’m still a part of the fraternity. I’ve used all this leadership experience to do some really big things with the fraternity. One thing I like to talk about is the philanthropy projects we do—we raise a lot of money for great causes, and people really enjoy our events. And, yeah, that’s it.

JOHN: Yeah, y’all had a pretty successful event not too long ago—was it Smile Train you raised money for?

JONAH: Yes, Smile Train is the nonprofit for cleft lip and PAL, and we raise a lot of money for them.

JOHN: Yeah, y’all are always doing great things—always out at the tailgates, me and Nicole love that, right? Allie, let’s hear from you. I do want to read that quote because I loved it so much. Allie told me in an email: “While charity plays an important role in raising money, service creates a lasting impact and builds connections throughout the community. That’s something I’ll carry with me in both my career and personal life.” Love that quote, and I know you’ll carry that with you throughout your life. So, on that note, let’s hear about your experience at Lamar.

ALLIE: So, I actually just recently became more involved. When I first enrolled at Lamar, I was working three jobs—and I was also taking care of my little sister. Then I added being a full-time student on top of that. Luckily, now I’m down to one job, and I live on my own, so I don’t have to worry about keeping up with my little sister. LUNDA was a big part of my experience—it’s where I discovered that I love dietetics. Unfortunately, they don’t have it anymore; I think it ended last semester. But I met so many people and got to volunteer at the Giving Field, which is why I keep coming back to farm-to-market initiatives. The Giving Field was incredible. Sometimes I would even go to Houston to volunteer at farmers markets and bring back what I learned there to support local food pantries.

JOHN: And LUNDA, for those who don’t know. I was about to say—is, I guess, the Nutrition and Dietetics Association at Lamar. They would go to the farmers market, create dishes in front of people, and show them how to cook healthy. That’s really, really cool. That makes sense now why you’re so tied to food and the community piece of everything, right? Awesome, awesome. Okay, let’s talk about some criteria. How do you apply for Alternative Spring Break? What does the selection process look like? If people hear this and are interested in going next March, how would they go about doing that?

JONAH: So, I applied through LU Hub. I saw an advertisement in the LU Weekly email and thought, “Oh my gosh, I have to apply for this.” I sent it to Allie, saying, “You have to apply for this,” so we both applied. Luckily, the application closed that same night, so we were able to submit it in time. After that, we received an email and a phone call saying they were interested in interviewing us for the opportunity. From there, we were either accepted or declined. Once accepted, we had a group meeting before the trip to go over everything—the itinerary, rules, and regulations. Then we went on the trip.

JOHN: Allie, same sort of similar experience for you?

ALLIE: Yeah, I will say they were very open. I was so shocked when I went to the interview room—I was so scared. I had never done this before, and I had all this stuff memorized. But they were so easy to talk to, and they really just wanted to hear why you wanted to go. I would say, if you do apply, just be yourself, share what you’re passionate about, and you’ll be fine.

JOHN: I think that’s some good advice for sure. Another key takeaway here is: read the Monday LU Weekly update—absolutely. I happen to know the guy who puts it together, and it takes quite a while to compile everything every Monday, just saying. Okay, awesome—fantastic. But really, think about the opportunities you’re missing if you’re not reading your newsletter. So, is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up the show?

ALLIE: Oh, I will say one last thing—I promise. I found it interesting that Puerto Rico also has different food additives, and that happens all over the world. Even with name brands like Coca-Cola, we noticed differences. We were like, “Why is this light brown? Why isn’t it sweet?” It’s because, even though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, they have different regulations. In fact, they were the first to adopt the FDA’s new regulations, while Texas is still catching up.

JOHN: Those are interesting facts. Hey, that’s why we said it’s important to immerse yourself in the culture, right? Then you learn all these interesting things.

ALLIE: For sure.

JOHN: While we’re on the topic of service and resiliency in communities, before we wrap up, I’d like to mention the upcoming Gulf Coast Community Resiliency Conference, which will take place in the Setzer Student Center Live Oak Ballroom on the Lamar University campus on Thursday, March 26, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. This event is hosted by the Center for Resiliency.

JOHN: Allie and Jonah, thanks again for joining me. Thanks for all the things you do on our campus and beyond and thank you for all you do.

JONAH: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you, John.

JOHN: Alright, and congrats again—early—on your graduation, Jonah.

JONAH: Yes, sir.

JOHN: Alright, that’s a wrap on another episode, please make sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with the events, activities, programs, and people right here at Lamar University. This is John Rollins, your host. Thank you for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time.