VISIONS Service Adventures, established 1988, is one of the best and most robust of teen community service programs. VISIONS community service projects for teens, in all of its program locations, are planned in close collaboration with non-profit partners in the host communities in which VISIONS lives and works.

 

The three key components, underpinning the framework of all VISIONS programs are ambitious community service, complete culture immersion and exchange, adventurous and interesting exploration. Summer community service programs for high school students come in many shapes and forms these days. Some organizations offer community service travel programs in which the predominant emphasis is on the travel. Participants move from one new and fascinating place to the next, week by week, accomplishing service along the way. In this way, they explore a broad spectrum of communities.

 

VISIONS teen volunteering programs, however, are anchored in one host community for three or four weeks. VISIONS foregoes extensive travel for deeper immersion and cross cultural friendship. While VISIONS groups do not travel throughout a region or country, they do have regular excursions, at least once a week in all VISIONS locations, and often these are multi-day excursions. Still, our participants always return to their home base residence in the heart of the host community. Because we remain in our host community for the week, the service projects undertaken can be more ambitious, often more technical. VISIONS service encompasses serious construction—whether carpentry, adobe or masonry or a mix of all three; environmental, sustainable development, agriculture, and social service projects are offered as well during the same program. A very short list of VISIONS projects includes construction and renovation of schools, community centers, homes, playgrounds, irrigation canals, potable water systems, bridges, bus shelters and more. Our teen volunteers also organize and supervise summer camps for local children, assist farmers and environmental organizations, artisans and health workers.

 

Every VISIONS program location features a central building project plus other kinds of service projects from which participants can choose. Woven through the days and weeks are continuous opportunities to mix and mingle with local people and to explore where we are in ways that are challenging and purely fun.

 

VISIONS offers community service abroad for high school students in host communities in the Caribbean, Central and South America and in Vietnam. Additionally, VISIONS offers programs in Alaska native villages, Montana Plains Indian communities, and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.