The visions blog
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VISIONS Staff to be Honored in Festivals
We always knew our staff leaders were special. Now entire islands and sweeping valleys are celebrating them, too! Two of our dearest staff are to be honored in two very different places in the Western Hemisphere. Rich Webb founded and directed VISIONS Peru program; he...
Destination: Dominica
How 16-year-old Michelle Gersman learned to love cementing septic tanks in a tropical paradise. I was ready for a change. For the past two summers, I'd been working at a local day camp, and I really wanted to try something new like community service. Also, I'd only...
Traveling Teen
"We can barely keep up with it" said Kathy Stewart, the director of family trips at Butterfleld & Robinson, when asked about demand for the trips she organizes. Pamela Lassers of Abercrombie & Kent, reports that A&K has seen a 30 percent increase in family...
Guide to Keeping Student Volunteers Healthy
We take great care to keep teenagers healthy in the varied domestic and foreign communities in which we work. We carefully refine tried and true procedures and implement new ones as experience, information, and advances in health science indicate. The following are...
Travel and Adventure Reflections from a Program Leader
By Tim Parsons Thoughts of past programs tend to re-surface this time of year. Simple tasks such as making a list of outdoor supplies for Alaska trigger memories of mammoth dragonflies, crampons and ice axes, the faces of Athabaskans and participants. Passing a mango...
Safety When Traveling Abroad
A lot of thought and preparation goes into ensuring the safest summer possible for our participants. Starting with how we choose a new program site, we consider everything from political climate to vehicle maintenance. Choosing a site Families often ask why we are...