While some students were basking in the sun in Cancun or Florida, others were devoting their spring break to helping others.

Through Campus Ministry, 132 students went on 15 trips around the world, including places like Phoenix, Denver and even Jamaica.

This was the first year without any incident, according to Campus Minister Harry O’Rourke. In previous years, there were minor happenings, including vans breaking down or losing air conditioning.

“We’re really happy that everyone came back safely,” said O’Rouke.

When O’Rourke was in college, he spent a spring break in Appalachia. He said that it transformed him and that he truly felt called from God.

O’Rourke stressed the difference between basic service trips and the mission trips provided through Campus Ministry: “These trips are not based on work or service but mission. Mission is at its truest when it is reflective.”

The students worked with the poor on the mission trips as opposed to working for the poor, he said.

O’Rourke said that the spring break trips are popular without any advertising.

“The best advertisement we have is when students come home and tell their friends about their experience,” he said.

Every year, some students go on follow-up trips to the place they visited on their spring break trips, according to O’Rourke.

That’s just what sophomore Tricia Fechter did.

She went to a rural parish in Campti, La. Fechter, along with fellow SLU group members including students from another school, worked with the parish priest to help develop a historical district in a struggling town.

“We were trying to bring the town back to life,” she said. “We worked with the priest and met members of the town to try to get them excited.”

Fechter went on this spring break trip last year to the same city. She is impressed with the progress of the city: “Things have been redeveloped, and the town has grown.”

Colleen Clancy, a sophomore, worked with the mentally handicapped in Mobile, Ala. She said that despite the long van ride, the trip went well. “We were really accepted by the people we worked with,” she said.

Sophomore Jane Lyskowski went on the New Orleans trip, which had a retreat-like feeling. She worked at the Hope House, a part of the St. Thomas Project. Every day her group focused on a different aspect of society, including housing, health care and education.

“We were more focused on learning and understanding these systems and bringing the knowledge home with us,” said Lyskowski. “Since we have the education, we have the advantage in the world. Now, we have the knowledge to help society.”

Lyskowski said that the trip stressed understanding of societal differences, and she can apply it to her life now.