Our 2016 New Alternative season is in full swing! This week groups from 4 colleges are visiting Selma to serve the community and learn more about civil rights history and Selma today. Follow us on Facebook and watch our 2016 New Alternative album grow!
Family photo of 45? #WeAreFamily #NewAlternative
As part of our New Alternative program, we provide each group of visitors with a group host to help ensure they have the best trip possible. Some of our perennial favorites on the group host roster are Sean and Tylisa Black, residents of Selma and long-time Alternative Break (AB) hosts. We thought you might like to hear a little about why they love AB!
What are three things you love about ASB?
Tylisa: The students, the hype, and the energy.
Sean: Same three as Tylisa.
If you had one word of advice for ABers, what would it be?
Tylisa: Be open to having everything you’ve ever known get challenged.
Sean: Come open, and take advantage of the opportunity to get to know all the volunteers.
Why do you group host? [Read more…]
The Civil Rights Memorial Center honors 40 martyrs of the civil rights movement. A visit to the Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC) is an opportunity to go beyond the limits of a textbook. This is a top destination for students in our New Alternative program who choose to take the Montgomery excursion, just a 40-minute drive from Selma. Find out why!
Here are five of our FAVORITE things about the Civil Rights Memorial Center:
1. The CRMC tells the stories of the unsung heroes. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks played critical parts in the movement, but the CRMC highlights the often unnoticed and unmentioned. WWII veterans, priests, college students’ mothers, grandparents, elementary-aged children, all individuals that died for the cause of Civil Rights. The CRMC gives individuals the opportunity to learn more about these everyday heroes.
2. Watch Faces in the Water. Faces in the Water is an 18-minute film telling the stories of some of the martyrs featured at the memorial. You learn about Emmitt Till’s death from the perspective of his mother, and hear other heart wrenching stories that were all part of this great movement. The film makes running your hands through the water on the memorial a much deeper experience.
3. Connecting the past and the present. The CRMC illustrates that the march indeed continues by connecting the fight for equality in the civil rights movement to the fight for human rights today. After watching Faces in the Water, you’ll be greeted by Elie Wiesel’s famous quote “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim” and then you enter a hallway featuring a collage of images from today’s struggle for justice. You’ll see the stories of five modern day martyrs killed since 1980. The hallway is a powerful part of the experience and often a memory visitors carry with them long after they leave.
This beautiful photo of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama was contributed by one of our former New Alternative participants who has stayed engaged with Something New and comes back to visit frequently!
“Selma is a life-changing experience. Every time I return, I learn more about Selma and myself. I wouldn’t trade my time in Selma for anything,” says Emery.
Contributed by Jill Johnson, Board Member & Community Volunteer
As a long time board member and volunteer, I have seen this organization consistently evolve. When we were first founded back in 2005 we just knew we wanted to help people. Period. No strings attached. It has taken 10 years to get to where we are now – three robust youth programs thriving in several cities, touching thousands of young lives and still growing!
We recently renamed, rebranded and refreshed our organization. The new names allowed us to tie together our programs for a more streamlined brand. Something New is now comprised of three stellar youth programs: New Expression youth arts, New Way conflict reconciliation training, and New Alternative service learning trips. The recent name change from Freedom Foundation to Something New tells the story of some things that needed to change and others that never will.