Last year CMU saw the end of a club that’s sole purpose was to keep kids from drinking and driving. Safe Rides, a volunteer program that offered free rides to students every weekend, failed to stay up and running.

This year ASG is providing a solution to benefit students who have been drinking as well as clubs around campus.

A new organization, MavRides, launches this week and will team with Enterprise car rentals to provide designated drivers for CMU students and alumni on the weekends.

“We’ve just seen the need for this and it’s just one of the things we’re trying to get off the ground,” ASG President Telbe Storbeck said.

It will be a volunteer based program, but ASG is offering incentive for CMU organizations to get involved.

“We can save so much money by renting with Enterprise, so that extra money that we have, we are going to give back to the clubs and orgs,” ASG Vice President Ariel Diamond said. “If they come to us and volunteer, we will pay them $100 that night.”

The program originally budgeted to buy its own vehicles and now that they are renting, they will give the extra money back to any club that sends six volunteers on the weekend.

“When clubs come to ASG we always ask, ‘what have you done for fundraising?’” Diamond said. “That’s a very important thing to us that clubs independently act. We like them to volunteer.”

MavRides is acting as its own CMU organization apart from ASG and has hired two full-time directors to build its success. It will run Friday and Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. They will label their vehicles with large magnets so students are able to easily recognize their ride. The rides are free for alumni and students with a MavCard.

To ensure that volunteers do not lose any money by helping out, MavRides will use reserve funds to pay for gas.

“[SafeRides] were paying for their own gas, putting, I think they said, 500 miles on their car a night and they didn’t receive tips,” Diamond said. “They were spending $100 a night on gas.”

The program is hoping to heavily recruit help. All volunteers are welcome to get involved with MavRides. Call 248-2222 or visit them on Facebook for more information.