As much as teenagers want to fit in, even more, they want to matter. To want to make a difference is not cliché to most teens. Equal parts passion, curiosity and vulnerability, teenagers are exuberant resources waiting to be tapped. One teen volunteer summer program has an impressive track record of putting the transformative energy of teenagers to use.

Since 1989 VISIONS has led the field in high quality summer volunteer international service programs for high school students, established expressly as a mini-Peace Corps for teens.

Many community service summer programs offer teen travel trips, but few were intentionally founded to immerse high school students in cross-cultural communities where they spend at least half their time on ambitious service projects.

VISIONS high school volunteers don't just ferry buckets of nails to carpenters, or hand off cinder blocks or adobe bricks for others to place. In our international service programs for high school students, the participants do the work with their leaders at their sides. Local masons and maestros teach building techniques. Where construction is wood-based, carpenters are full-fledged members of the VISIONS staff team, guiding participants in all phases of construction. The scope of the construction is all the more impressive because teenagers accomplish it. 

In the Caribbean West Indies where VISIONS has operated since 1991 every house, school and community center is built to hurricane specifications. To date, all structures have weathered several hurricanes, suffered minimal damage, and remain sound.

VISIONS also offers community service summer programs in a few U.S. locations. One unique project was construction of a 40 x 60 foot tapered-log building in the native village of Mentasta, Alaska. VISIONS high school volunteers milled and streamlined the logs, planed, tongue-and-grooved; installed walls, the ceiling, flooring and roofing. They pealed and sanded and placed foundation logs, installed the king post, mid-spam beam, the purlins and trusses and the ridge pole, sanded the exterior and chinked the facade.

At least 90 percent of Visions’ projects are completed by the end of the program. It took three summer seasons to complete the Mentasta center from start to finish. By August 2002, 126 teenagers from 15 United States and two foreign countries had helped build Mentasta’s community center from the ground up.

In November 2002 the largest inland earthquake in North America in nearly 150 years struck Alaska, the largest recorded worldwide in 2002. Mentasta was at the quake’s epicenter. It sliced right through the village.

The community center stood through the quake, was the gathering place for 150 villagers during the aftershocks, and served for months as the village school until the school was repaired.

Over 90% of VISIONS participants have never hammered nails, never placed rebar or laid adobe bricks. Participants learn technical skills at the program site in the first few days of their experience. Adult leaders and local people assist in and manage the work sites.

The successes, satisfaction and confidence gained by participants in our community service summer programs are real. Working and socializing with local people offers unique opportunities to learn about the culture, daily lives very different from our participants’ lives and in many locations to improve foreign language skills.

Not all VISIONS service projects are construction. Other offerings on a single program include social service, sustainable development, creating murals, agricultural work, tutoring and camp activities for local children. VISIONS programs blend service, cultural immersion and exploration in the Caribbean West Indies; North, Central, South America, and Vietnam.