By Elizabeth Lopatto

It's lunchtime at the Bowery Mission, and seven Cornell University students are serving rice, chicken and gravy to homeless men staying there to learn job skills and conquer addictions.

The ones who still sleep on the streets will arrive later, said Hali Booker, 21, of Los Angeles. The college senior is spending a week of her spring vacation on New York's skid row coordinating six groups of Cornell student volunteers who are also mentoring disadvantaged kids and counseling abused women.

While beaches are brimming this week with college students spending spring break drinking cocktails, the number of Cornell students working to help others has jumped 10-fold in the past decade to 160 this year, according to the school. Harvard University, Brown University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and New York University are among schools with similar volunteer programs.

"My friends are asking, `Why didn't you go somewhere?''' Booker said. "But why go home and do nothing when you can help others?''

Almost 19 percent of the 17.5 million students enrolled in U.S. colleges volunteered for community work in 2005, according to a report by the Corporation for National and Community Service. That's 22 percent more than in 2002, the Washington- based group said. University volunteer coordinators say the numbers have increased further since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

`Take a Break!'

The Cornell students sifted through donated clothes, loaded bottled water into vans that would later visit people living on the street and served hot meals to residents of the mission.

"My friends didn't understand at all,'' said Cornell student Makda Habtegabir, 23, of Stockholm. "They were like, `Why waste your spring break when you've been studying and doing so much work? Take a break!'''

Cornell's spring service trips have been booked since October and the waiting list this year is the longest ever, said Lisa St. John, spokeswoman for the Ithaca, New York-based school's Public Service Center.

Most college students still use the hiatus from classes to unwind, sipping Mai Tais in sandy playgrounds like Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. STA Travel, the world's largest student travel agency, said only 2 percent of its spring break travel bookings are for students working as volunteers.

Scamming the System

While some collegiate volunteers no doubt scam the system to pad their resumes, people under 25 have a different view of civic engagement than their parents, said Scott Beale, author of "Millennial Manifesto: A Youth Activist Handbook'' (Instant Publisher, 200 pages, $12).

"It's more expected among young people these days,'' said Beale, 32. "But there are easier ways to fake community service for your resume than giving up spring break.''

STA Travel began to market community-service themed trips in 2006, said Amanda Webb, the company's spokeswoman. STA is a division of Diethelm Keller Group, based in Zurich.

About two-thirds of incoming college freshmen said helping people in difficulty was either a very important or essential personal goal, according to a University of California, Los Angeles survey in 2006. The researchers noted that Hurricane Katrina may have raised awareness of others in need.

Katrina, Global Warming

Ellen Connorton, a graduate student at Harvard's School of Public Health in Boston, has traveled to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina to volunteer. She and other students from the School of Public Health and the Kennedy School of Government go in January and again at spring break, she said, helping rebuild schools.

``I get more interest with every posting of the trip,'' Connorton said.

Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has seven public service field trips this year, involving about 65 students, said Rick Spalding, the college's chaplain and community service coordinator. The ranks of student volunteers swelled after Katrina, and the numbers have remained high because of students' awareness of their own impact on issues such as climate change, he said.

``This is not a selfish generation,'' Spalding said. "If their parents -- people in my generation -- had been as conscious, we might not be in the mess we're in.''

People born after 1975 "are heavily engaged in some aspects of civic life, such as volunteering,'' according to the National Conference on Citizenship's 2007 Annual Civic Health Index. "Volunteering rates rose substantially for young Americans over the last generation and remain at historically high levels.''

Starting Young

Teach for America, which gives college graduates jobs teaching disadvantaged students, said applications increased 15 percent in the past five years, to 18,172 this year.

"One of the most distinguishing characteristics among this generation is to do something meaningful with their lives,'' said Elissa Clapp, senior vice president of recruitment at Teach for America.

At the Bowery Mission, Harry Ecclesiaste has seen many Cornell volunteers since he completed the program and stayed on as an employee.

Ecclesiaste fled to the U.S. from Haiti when he was 19 to escape a military coup. He was homeless, sleeping in subway tunnels, for 25 years until the Bowery took him in, he said. He stays to feel connected to the community and said he passes that feeling on to the students.

"They learn from us,'' Ecclesiaste said. "They completely change their attitudes.''

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