During
the spring break of 1976, a student named Max Lucado traveled with
a group of students from ACU to aid Guatemalan village hit by an earthquake
earlier that year.
Perhaps
it was Lucado’s experiences on that trip to Guatemala that led him
to sponsor a motion that the Students’ Association fund a trip to
Des Moines, Iowa, the next year. This first official Spring Break
Campaign did not meet expectations, however; only 74 participated
of the estimated 200, and the unbudgeted $3500 that the campaign took
from the SA account made spending tight for other groups for the rest
of the year.
For
the next three years, ACU continued to send campaigns to a single
destination, and in 1980, Spring Break Campaigns grew to include St.
Louis and Boston. The following year, the number of locations doubled
again. By 1986, ACU was sending 251 students to 15 different cities
across the United States.
- Thirty
years later, Spring Break Campaigns are still a flourishing part
of student life at ACU. More than 500 students travel to over
30 locations across the globe during spring break, doing everything
from building churches to entertaining children to feeding the
homeless and spreading the love of Christ by serving others and
shining His light into a darkened world.
