For the first time TeamVOLS has introduced volunteer applicants to a mid-May alternative break trip abroad.

This year's destination: Mazatlan, Mexico.

"We want to give students an opportunity to meet a lot of new people and get to do some service work and give back to the people around them. That's really the idea," said Dave Kennedy, a graduate advisor on the TeamVOLS leadership board.

TeamVOLS, a University of Tennessee community service and outreach program, partnered with the university on the abroad trip idea to help ignite the "Get Ready for the World" program. 

"We are taking students to places they can experience more cultural differences," Leslie Shaffer said, who will head the international team. A maximum of 15 students will be going-a number capped by individual interviews.

"We don't have the funding and personnel to take as many students as possible, so we interview," Kennedy said. You can't have a team of all leaders, all introverts or all extroverts. We try to make it a mixed group of people. Dave Kennedy, TeamVOLS graduate advisor

The week-long trip, from May 14 to May 20, is $200, which includes airfare, accomodations and food. TeamVOLS also holds fundraisers to help fund the trips.

Kennedy said there are four other alternative break trips throughout the year-two spring break trips and two fall break trips, taking in 20 to 25 students each trip.

Fall trips are $35 and spring trips are $55, considering they're a seven-day trip opposed to the fall's two-day trip.

Last year's alternative spring break trips were held in Jackson, Miss. and Biloxi, Miss.

In Jackson, volunteers helped with the hurricane relief effort and worked with food pantries and clothing drives.

Past alternative trips have taken volunteers anywhere from New York City, to Boston, Chicago and New Orleans all in the name of community service. They have worked with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, the Ronald McDonald Houses and Second Harvest Food Bank.

This is Kennedy's sixth spring break trip, and as he puts it, "there's not a more rewarding experience."

"I've spent spring breaks at the beach and you do have a lot of fun and meet a lot of people," Kennedy said, "but at alternative break you get to make someone's life better at the same time."