Thirteen Middlebury students will be traveling to the Dominican Republic over February break as part of a Middlebury Alternative Break (MAlt) trip. MAlt is a student organization that provides student-designed and student-led service trips for Middlebury College students. MAlt offers opportunities for students to participate in strong direct service that seeks to address needs as determined by a local community partner. MAlt is committed to a needs-blind acceptance policy. As a result, we do extensive fundraising to ensure that participants’ financial needs can be met. We all work together to support one another, which is why this fundraiser is so critical to our efforts.

We want to use February break as an opportunity to get involved in increasing access to education to help end the cycle of poverty in developing countries like the Dominican Republic. We hope not only to help the orphans improve their English and general literacy through the classes we will teach, but also to inspire them and give them the confidence they will need to continue school and succeed later in life.