Skip to main content

Our Projects

Alternative Spring Break

ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK

We are thrilled to share that 2026 was another successful Alternative Spring Break trip this past March in Memphis, TN! We partnered with over 140 amazing volunteers from 14 universities and removed a total of 131,419 pounds of trash from McKellar Lake in Memphis!

 

2026 ASB Program

Each year, we dive into spring by offering college students a spring break experience like no other. So far, we’ve partnered with over 2,501 students from across the country, successfully removing over 1.8 million pounds of trash!

In 2026, we’ll be working in Memphis, TN, where students will explore the river on foot and by boat, collaborating closely with our crew and fellow students. Living Lands & Waters hosts several week-long cleanups (Monday through Thursday), providing students the chance to meet the renowned Chad Pregracke and his energetic team of river rats.

Dates Of Service Project: 

March 8 - 12th 

March 15 - 19th 

March 22 - 26th 

Questions? Please reach out to Callie@livinglandsandwaters.org!

Don’t know what you’re getting yourself into? Check out our What To Expect/Safety Guide one-pager.

FAQs

  • Meals

    Living Lands & Waters provides lunches on the barge Monday - Thursday. Dinner is the responsibility of the students and groups (with the exception of Sunday night). The Comfort Inn Downtown provides a complimentary hot breakfast each morning. We do encourage bringing snacks to stash in the hotel. Each room has a fridge, microwave, and coffee maker.

    *Sunday night dinner at Central BBQ in downtown Memphis, TN will be provided.

    If you or anyone in your group has any dietary restrictions (i.e. allergies, vegetarians, vegans, or religious restrictions) you MUST make Callie, the Project Coordinator, aware as soon as possible. If you do not disclose this before/when making your final payment, we will be unable to accommodate. We work with a caterer to provide lunch each week and need adequate notice when planning! You are allowed to bring your own lunch aboard if necessary.

  • Lodging

    Our lodging location is at the Comfort Inn in downtown Memphis, TN.

    Rooms include 2 full sized beds and can accommodate up to four people per room. Each room is around $141 per night, which when split breaks down to $35.25 a night and $176.25 for the week (Sunday night to Friday morning) at full capacity.

    The hotel also charges a nightly parking fee of $10 to park in their garage. With the exception of 3 complimentary charter/coach bus parking spaces.

    **Groups/students staying at the hotel - Final payments are due 30 days prior to your groups arrival date** 

    **Students and groups are welcome to find their own lodging accommodations. In this case only the $75 fee is required as payment for the program!**

  • Transportation

    Individuals and groups will be required to secure their own transportation to and from Memphis, TN.  They will also need to have transportation to and from the boat ramp each day where we will meet for cleanups (about 15 minutes from The Comfort Inn Downtown). 

  • Payments

    All groups/students will be required to pay a $75 non-refundable fee per attendee for dues and to lock in their spot(s). 

    **Fees are due as soon as possible, but no later than November 28th. Without payment, we cannot guarantee your spot. The program is first come first serve.**

    **Groups/students staying at the hotel - Final payments are due 30 days prior to your groups arrival date**

    Payments can be made online via our donations page. Click on the donate button and be sure to make note of your group name along with the notation “2026 ASB - University/College name”.

    Ex: 2026 ASB – Smith College

    We will also accept checks made out to Living Lands & Waters. Please make sure to have your group name included and send to:

    Living Lands & Waters
    17624 Route 84 North
    East Moline, IL 61244
    Attn: Callie Schaser

  • Scholarships

    Each year LL&W presents six (6) $500 scholarships to students in need of financial assistance. To be considered, your application must be completed by January 16th, 2026. Scholarship winners staying in our hotel will be required to have their hotel fee taken out of their winnings. Participants applying for a scholarship will automatically have their spots saved without filling out the registration below.

    CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR THE 2026 ASB SCHOLARSHIP!

Our Impact

  • Pounds of Trash Removed

    13,588,779

  • Volunteers Engaged

    134,770

  • Students Educated

    28,633

  • Trees Planted

    2,139,378

  • ADM
  • Cargill
  • Cargo Carriers
  • PCNA
  • Anhesuser - Busch
  • Argosy
  • Clif Bar
  • Ingram
  • ACBL
  • Arconic
  • Bert & Ann Shearer
  • Campbell Transportation Company
  • CGB
  • Culver's
  • Hines Furlong
  • Marquette
  • Martin Fabert
  • Modern Woodmen
  • Shiela June
  • P&G
© 2025 Living Lands & Waters
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

  1. What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
  2. Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
  3. Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
  4. How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
  5. What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
  6. How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
  7. Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
  8. How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  9. How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  10. How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
  11. Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
  12. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
  13. Permission to Use of Materials The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.
Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.

Powered by Firespring