Silvana Gonzalez turns 21 during the University of Colorado Boulder’s spring break this year — but instead of going out for drinks with friends, she’s decided to spend it giving back.

Gonzalez will head to Tennessee during spring break through a CU Boulder service program and spend her birthday promoting animal welfare.

“I just wanted to spend a spring break differently and make a positive impact in other communities apart from Boulder,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez will take the trip as part of CU Boulder’s Sko Serve program, which sends teams of students to different places across the country to engage in service during their breaks from school. About 60 students are signed up to travel this spring break, which begins March 24, volunteering for a week in areas including animal welfare, environmental conservation, food and housing insecurity and immigration.

Students sign up and commit to the program while providing a few preferences about where they’d like to travel, but they do so without knowing exactly where they’ll be headed until the program chooses for them.

Junior Giana Rocha will begin her fourth service program through Sko Serve during spring break.

“The thing that has kept me coming back definitely is Sko Serve,” Rocha said. “It’s where I found a home on campus. As a first-generation student, I hadn’t had many people in my family — none at all — go to a four-year university. It was hard finding some place where I belonged.”

Erica Peck, CU Boulder’s program manager for experiential service learning, said the program first began in 2003 and has evolved since to add a variety of experiences.

“It’s empowering students to be active citizens,” Peck said.

She provides support and guidance. However, the programs are essentially entirely student-led and planned.

“I think it’s really wonderful that students feel they can take their break of time and go out and serve others,” Peck said. “There’s some real selflessness there.”Junior Katie Simmons will head to Kansas City to engage in youth advocacy. When she was growing up, she was in foster care and was homeless. During the trip, she’ll be working with kids in the same situation she once was in.

“I always want to help people,” Simmons said. “That’s very central to who I am as a person because I know what it feels like to be scared and alone and not really have much. So that is central to what I want to do. I want to help and not have people face those same struggles.”

Mann Dubey will graduate with a master’s degree in aerospace engineering in May. He’s the first person in his family to ever step outside of India, where he grew up, and he’s the first in his family to pursue a science or math major. Dubey will travel to Catalina Island in California to work on conserving oceans and beach life and treat the garbage and pollution left by people who visit, which is harming fisheries and local flora and fauna.

“Everybody going on this trip has in some form or the other the same ideology of giving to the community,” Dubey said, adding, “It (involves) being a global citizen.”

Sophomore Maria Goergen will travel to Utah to assist in efforts addressing housing insecurity. From growing up in Denver to attending college in Boulder, she said, she’s always noticed a lot of unhoused people.

“I really just want to make a positive impact, and this seemed like a great way to do it,” she said.