Pomona Students Serve Communities in Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco During Spring Break

While in Oakland on the AlternaBreak trip coordinated in collaboration with the Office of Black Student Affairs, Se’maj Griffin ’26 and her cohort made a point of only patronizing locally owned businesses.

As the Black population in Oakland decreases, Griffin says, the group sought places keeping the city’s cultural identity alive.

“By being so particular about where we spent our time and also our dollar, we were able to engage more authentically with the community,” Griffin adds. “And people were a lot more open to having conversations with us, even though we weren’t from the area.”

In scheduling stops at civic institutions and nonprofit headquarters, Griffin, an environmental analysis and sociology double major from West Palm Beach, Florida, curated a trip to engage with changemakers in City Hall offices and on the ground.

The group toured an affordable housing complex for seniors and gardened with People’s Program, a Black-led organization dedicated to empowering Oakland communities through grassroots work. The cohort also helped the nonprofits CityTeam and Community Kitchens prep more than 550 meals for low-income residents.

As coordinator, Griffin crafted a flexible itinerary and encouraged others to lead the cultural activities they felt passionate about. Giving everyone a say in where the group went “made the trip more personal and engaging,” Griffin says.

“Smiles are a big thing,” Griffin adds, “and everybody was smiling throughout the experience. We had a lot of great service opportunities in different areas … and seeing people enjoy themselves and build community cohesion was the most rewarding thing.”

As they traveled from place to place, Griffin and her peers discussed the ideas they saw in action and drew parallels to their personal missions and goals. The cohort bonded during these in-between moments, getting to know each other beyond service.

Being the oldest student there, Griffin says, “It was nice to have the opportunity to make friends again. Everybody was wonderful, thoughtful and intelligent. It was nice to be in a summer camp situation, where you’re finding out what people like to do and what experiences they’ve had.”

“Now I have a lot of newer friends that I didn’t think I would have this late in my college career.”

Pride in identity in San Diego

At the end of her AlternaBreak cohort’s first day in San Diego, Stephanie Granobles ’27 began uploading photos of the day’s activities to Instagram.

“Our brown skin looks so fire!” Granobles recalls a peer saying in response to a picture taken while the group canvassed Barrio Logan, a predominantly Latinx neighborhood, informing residents of their rights.

As coordinator of the AlternaBreak planned in collaboration with Chicano Latino Student Affairs, Granobles found beauty not only in the remark, but in its sentiment as well.

“Having pride in your identity in a society that oftentimes tries to homogenize us or tell us that we’re all the same is a very strong form of resistance—at an individual level and to the people around you,” she says.

Granobles, a politics and sociology double major by way of Chicago, Illinois, wanted the CLSA AlternaBreak to emphasize the intersectionality of community empowerment and community engagement.

Her CLSA cohort attended the Latinx Film Festival; a workshop on dignity and human rights led by Alliance San Diego; and a talk at Centro Cultural de la Raza about the banning of el cortito—a tool once used by farmworkers that caused debilitating pain—led by the lawyer who won the case.

In addition to walking Barrio Logan, the group volunteered at Words Alive, a nonprofit that delivers literacy materials to underserved communities.

“There are so many highs and lows to working for your community and for marginalized people,” Granobles says. “You go to events and learn from people who have had so much success and it’s invigorating. But you also find spaces to do tasks that may feel distant from a goal, but ultimately are fractional changes that will build on top of each other.”

Aside from planning service projects, Granobles was intentional about reserving time between outings for her peers to be vulnerable in spaces of comfort and safety.

“That vulnerability,” she says, “is so powerful for forming ideas and understanding our shared experiences. We were so fortunate to have such incredible, passionate and engaged students on our trip.”

Housing and food insecurity in San Francisco

Before Joanna Lam ’27 and her AlternaBreak cohort started volunteering with San Francisco-based Compass Family Services, the nonprofit’s corporate relations manager explained the barriers they face in assisting families experiencing generational homelessness.

While always in pursuit of city funding to fulfill their mission, the government data doesn’t reflect the populations they serve, Lam recalls learning, so the city doesn’t acknowledge that whole families live without shelter.

“Hearing that,” Lam says, “made me even more passionate about working at the intersection of data science and public policy. I want to produce data that accurately captures people’s lived realities. By doing so, I hope to bring attention to issues that are often overlooked by the government.”

As coordinator of the AlternaBreak trip to San Francisco, Lam centered her cohort’s service projects around housing and food insecurity—issues better understood practically than abstractly, she says.

The group examined the specificities of issues facing the area by collaborating with nonprofits Larkin Street Youth Services, St. Anthony’s, San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, Project Open Hand and Compass Family Services.

Additionally, Lam and her peers learned the history of San Francisco’s Chinatown during a walking tour, and they sat in on the Housing Authority of the City and County of San Francisco’s monthly Development, Finance and Operations Committee meeting.

“As a public policy analysis major,” she says, “witnessing how nonprofits work in tandem to serve the community, secure support from donors, and operate within the constraints of city laws was valuable.”

Between outings, the San Francisco cohort visited Pier 39, the Golden Gate Bridge and the California Academy of Sciences. In their downtime, Lam and her peers bonded over their passion for community service.

“This experience only made me more dedicated to a career in public service,” Lam says. “I want to make sure what I learn [at Pomona] is not only theoretical but can also be applied to real world situations.”