Visions Service Adventures
Since 1989 VISIONS has set the standard for domestic and international community service programs.
VISIONS summer community service programs for teens, and middle school students, blend ambitious volunteer work, cultural immersion, and adventure.
Days of close camaraderie within a cross-cultural context have a rhythm and substance that push you to tap into your potential as you, the community, and other students work toward common goals.
You will know the people whose lives you have impacted, and will return home a more confident global citizen with genuine appreciation for our multi-cultural world.
Join us, and other students, for a travel experience of domestic or international community service.
Community Service for Teens
VISIONS volunteer projects are ambitious. We work hard to meet the service commitments that are planned with communities in response to their identified needs. Service encompasses both construction and non-construction.
Students spend at least 55% of the program engaging in service. We partner with local governments, nonprofits, civic sectors, and community-minded individuals.
In some summer program locations, our partners plan volunteer projects in stages, several progressive seasons ahead, confident in VISIONS high standards and our teens' leadership capabilities.
Culture & Language Immersion
Cultural understanding and friendship is a core focus of VISIONS summer programs. Working with and for our hosts is a doorway into their lives. You will learn about the place you go in many ways. Spanish- and French-speaking programs offer constant language immersion that increases foreign language speaking skills and enhances students' cross-cultural experience.
VISIONS teens share work sites, meals and down time with folks who have become close friends over the course of many summers. Always there are opportunities to meet and mingle with local people, truly crossing cultures. Our service-immersion programs have the means, methods and opportunities for a variety of dialogues with native speakers.
Travel Adventure &
Summer Exploration
VISIONS teens enjoy a balanced experience complete with travel, adventures and exploration. Whether you travel abroad for one of our summer programs or opt for a domestic location, all VISIONS students take in summer exploration with a splendid variety of scenery, geography, wildlife and history. Our teens explore the places we go in ways that are challenging, engaging and purely fun.
Depending on the summer program location, recreation activities include rock or ice climbing, wilderness backpacking and hiking, snorkeling, scuba diving, sea kayaking, rainforest zip-lining, rafting, horseback riding, whale watching, underground cave exploration, and other travel adventures.
I have never had so much fun with such amazing individuals completing projects that would and will benefit so many people in my entire life.
Patrick Fleming
Watertown, CT
I still call on my experience with VISIONS and am gratified to have that knowledge informing my work. This is no luxury tour - just luxurious learning and growth. VISIONS has its head and heart in the right place and really is different, in all the right ways, from many organizations that offer summer service programs for teenagers.
Max Savishinsky, Program Director for Latin America and Caribbean
Council on International Experiental Exchange (CIEE)
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Since 1989 VISIONS has set the standard for teen volunteer summer programs. Our high school programs, as well as middle school programs, offer the best community service experiences available to teens and pre-teens. Cultural immersion, language practice, travel adventures and summer exploration are woven into all of VISIONS' community service programs. Among teen summer camps, teen travel abroad, teen summer service programs and international adventures for high school students, VISIONS has ranked among the best in quality and integrity for 22 years.
VISIONS teens live in the heart of a host community, rooted in a very new, and meaningful cross-cultural experience that surpass the superficial. Our hosts throughout South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Vietnam and the United States welcome our teen volunteers, sharing their lives and views of life. High school volunteers, as well as middle school students in our "Passage" programs, learn about, do and see things never before imagined. Lasting friendships form spontaneously with other teens (and pre-teens), local hosts and summer leaders. Days of "hard core" community service and close camaraderie in a cross-cultural setting have a substance that pushes our student volunteers to tap into their leadership potential as the group works together toward common goals. VISIONS teenagers experience organic culture immersion, foreign language opportunities, and adventurous travel and exploration, returning home with genuine appreciation for our multi-cultural world and confidence as global citizens.
Everything in VISIONS, the degree of our success, depends on teamwork. We are interdependent, alternately supporting and leaning on each other. We live together simply, work together, explore and play together, and enjoy our shared experience.
VISIONS was established in 1988 as a kind of Peace Corps service opportunity for teens. Our mission has not changed but has grown and flourished through decades of experience, earning VISIONS a reputation of highest quality summer programs in the field. VISIONS teen summer programs blend ambitious volunteer service projects, cultural and language immersion, travel adventures and exploration. We work hard to meet service goals planned with host communities in response to needs that they identify. While construction projects are keystones of each site, every service program location incorporates non-construction service, too. Adventure travel and summer exploration are woven into the experience as the days progress.
Students spend at least 55% of the program engaging in community service. Our partners are local and national governments, nonprofits, civic sectors, community outreach and charitable organizations, schools, and community-minded individuals. In some summer program locations, our partners plan service projects in stages, several progressive seasons ahead, confident in VISIONS high standards and our teens' leadership & proven capabilities. Of equal if not greater value is the authentic cross-cultural experience: the close relationships with individuals in the communities in which we live and work.
Summer program planning occurs during the off-season. Often we know the next season’s projects before the current summer season ends. Most volunteer projects are developed during winter months through regular communication with our partners in the field and personal visits to the sites before the summer.
Every VISIONS program undertakes a ground-up construction project. Student participants learn technical skills from staff carpenters, local masons and adobe maestros. Our teens break into small teams on a daily basis in order to work at the service projects that are in progress during the summer program. VISIONS incorporates sustainable development and environmental projects by building greenhouses, irrigation canals, cisterns, potable water systems and compost latrines, low-impact walkways through protected lands, and fish and endangered species hatcheries.
Every VISIONS summer program includes non-construction service work, too, such as internships with micro-businesses, farmers, artisans, health workers, and others. We create and paint murals for community buildings. VISIONS teens volunteer with children in day camps and tutoring activities, and assist with the elderly, orphaned or disabled.
Cross-cultural learning is a core focus. Our high school students, and middle school students, share work sites, meals, recreation and down time with folks who have become close friends over the course of many summers. Our summer programs have the means, methods and opportunities for a variety of dialogues with native speakers. Spanish and French language programs, with fluent staff leaders, offer constant language immersion that increases foreign language speaking skills and builds upon the cultural experience.
Your leaders in foreign language program locations are fluent speakers of the language. They help build language bridges by interpreting, clarifying, practicing and playing language games with our teen participants, and always incorporating the language immersion opportunities.
In VISIONS there is always time to play and wind down, and plenty of adventure camp like activities. Teen travel adventures abroad and teen summer exploration are not lost on a VISIONS domestic or international community service program. VISIONS summer programs offer a splendid variety of afternoon and weekend travel adventures, and explorations of scenery, geography, wildlife and history. Depending on the location, recreation activities include rock or ice climbing, wilderness backpacking and hiking, snorkeling, scuba diving, sea kayaking, rainforest zip-lining, rafting, horseback riding, whale watching, underground cave exploration and always sightseeing.
VISIONS is not a typical teen adventure camp, teen tour, travel adventures abroad program, or summer camp. It is a wholly experiential learning experience with a purpose in a real life setting of continuous discovery and constant rewards.
VISIONS Service Adventures offers summer programs for high school students 14 to 18, and Passage summer programs for middle school students 11 to 13. VISIONS blends ambitious community service, culture and language immersion, exploration and adventure in:
- Alaska
- Montana
- Mississippi Gulf Coast
- Dominican Republic
- British Virgin Islands
- Dominica
- Guadeloupe
- Nicaragua
- Ecuador & Galapagos
- Peru
If you are a high school student or middle school student seeking a rewarding, life changing summer of community service, culture immersion, and adventurous exploration, consider VISIONS. Speak to our references. They will confirm that VISIONS offers the best community service, cross-cultural summer program for teens.