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While many UNC Asheville students will spend their upcoming spring break partying, two alternative trips offer others service opportunities hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

A group of 14 students, accompanied by one faculty member and one staff member, are traveling to Bolivia for 12 days to tackle a variety of issues. Another group of almost 50 students and faculty members are returning to New Orleans to work with Habitat for Humanity.

"This is a great chance for cultural exchange and broadening our world past the UNCA campus," said Linda Block, coordinator of lead-poisoning prevention at UNCA.

Block is attending the trip to Bolivia along with Linda Cornett, professor of political science and director of international studies at UNCA, and is applying her expertise on lead-poisoning prevention to test the region.

The students will most likely work with orphaned boys and girls, teaching English, dancing, sewing and playing with the kids, according to Block.

"There are a lot of possibilities of what we may be doing," Block said. "It depends on what conditions we find when we get there."

Block said Americans who travel to the country gain personal benefit while contributing to a good cause.

"The reality is that we are going to learn possibly more from them than they will from us," Block said.

UNCA students are requesting more opportunities to get out of the classroom and into the international community, according to Cornett.

An anonymous gift of $100,000 is turning these requests into realities. The Mountains to the World Travel Fund, created in fall 2007, provides monetary assistance to students interested in global travel and volunteer opportunities.

"This is the most exciting thing to hit the campus in the 10 years I have been here," said Mark Gibney, political science professor and administer of the Mountains to the World fund.

The group traveling to Bolivia is the first large group taking advantage of the new money offered by the fund, according to Cornett.

The 14 students embarking on the trip come from different backgrounds and majors; some speak Spanish and some don't, but all expect a life-changing experience. The trip is almost entirely covered by the travel fund, with students responsible for immunity shots and $350 for general expenses.

"It sounds like every day is going to be something different, so we'll be given the opportunity to do a lot of service-oriented work," said Brittany Tinkler, senior biology student. "But my ultimate goal is just to be there, observe the culture from an anthropological standpoint and not impose too much of my American orientations on the people."

Tinkler graduates this spring and opted out of a trip home to Miami in order to gain a meaningful and rewarding experience during her final spring break, she said.

The second major trip during spring break is a return effort by UNCA students to help resuscitate the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

The Key Center sponsored a trip last March, and decided to sponsor another trip this year.

The students will once again stay in Camp Hope, a volunteer camp in St. Bernard Parrish.

Last year's group took a bus from St. Bernard Parrish to Musicians' Village in the upper Ninth Ward to assist in the rebuilding efforts.

Musicians' Village, conceived by New Orleans natives Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., is an eight-acre parcel of land designed to reconstruct a community and preserve the rich musical culture of New Orleans, according to Musicians' Village's Web site.

Last year, the UNCA group was the largest university group at Camp Hope, outdoing NC State and Michigan State efforts, according to Merritt Moseley, professor of literature and Key Center director.

"I couldn't have been more proud of our students," Moseley said. "They worked hard all day long, they were cheerful and they were unselfish in giving up their spring break."

This year's group will likely pick up where they left off. They will move dirt, paint houses, organize trailers and do most everything there is to do in creating a community, according to Moseley.

"I hope that we can continue hosting trips like these," said senior atmospheric sciences student, Megan Graham. "I think it's going to be on of those places that is forgotten and there is still so much work to be done."

Graham is one of many students returning to New Orleans during spring break this year. Erin Ball, senior atmospheric sciences student, is also making her second spring break trip to New Orleans.

"Going two years after Hurricane Katrina, I wasn't really sure what to expect because after a disaster like that, you assume things will be rebuilt fairly quickly," Ball said. "But going there I saw how amazingly desolate the area still is."

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