You will be welcomed like family into a community we have worked with for more than 25 years. Build schools, homes, and medical clinics, and helping to run a thriving summer camp. Off hours are infused with the lively Caribbean culture, time spent socializing, dancing, practicing Spanish, and watching baseball. Program participants also take excursions to the Zona Colonial, beaches, and Dominican Alps.
During our 20+ years of work in this vivacious community, VISIONS teens built homes, schools, a medical clinic, and community centers. Along with working on these ongoing construction projects, you will also help organize a popular summer camp for neighborhood kids.
FEATURED PARTNER
The Lions Club of Sabana Perdida has earned high acclaim as one of the most active Lions Clubs in the world. They have worked with VISIONS since 1991 on large and small-scale projects alike, and members work year-round to help serve the communities of Santo Domingo.Our home is in Elio Franco, a small neighborhood of Santo Domingo, the oldest city in the New World. Here, we have two neighboring houses, and we eat all meals together as a group in one of the homes. We feel fortunate to have a legacy of service and friendship in the Dominican Republic, and we are well cared for by the communities in which we have lived and worked for so many years.
The Dominican Republic is VISIONS oldest international summer program. Based in neighborhoods of Santo Domingo since that first summer in 1991, VISIONS participants are welcomed like much-anticipated family members arriving to a reunion. Teen volunteers in the D.R. have accomplished some of VISIONS largest building projects, including some schools that serve more than 800 students each year.
With a wide variety of landscapes, from mountains and beaches to city life and rural communities, summer adventures in the Dominican Republic are diverse. Enjoy a quiet mountain town, a day hike, and a swim in waterfall pools in the Dominican Alps, the Caribbean’s highest range. We visit beaches a couple afternoons each week for swimming in the clear ocean waters, and we explore the historic Zona Colonial and marketplaces in Santo Domingo’s city center. On this trip, you will discover a Dominican Republic unknown to tourists, resulting in an unforgettable summer experience.
On the northern outskirts of Santo Domingo, we make our home in the lively neighborhood of Elio Franco. We live in two neighboring houses and eat all meals together as a group in one of the homes. There are bathrooms and showers, bunk beds and communal areas. The electricity that fuels water pumps can be sporadic, so some showers take the form of cool bucket showers.
Service work begins after breakfast and ends by mid-afternoon to beat the heat. You will work five days per week, and typically get to choose between three different projects each day. Once a week, you will be on “homebase crew” with a few other participants and a leader. The crew makes breakfast, walks to the nearby store to buy food for the next meals, takes laundry to our laundress Lola, and enjoys a “day in the life” of the neighborhood.
After work is a blend of neighborhood activities and outings. There are trips to the beach, a baseball game, dancing lessons, plenty of time with local kids, and ongoing opportunities to practice Spanish. After dinner a few evenings a week, we have meetings to talk through the cultural and volunteer experience.
Weekends and a few other days are set aside for travel and excursions during the first session. The second, shorter session includes some of the same highlights as the first, but condensed into afternoons and one full-day excursion.
Meals on a VISIONS program are varied and plentiful with a mix of Dominican and American cuisine. We serve vegetarian and meat options, and also provide healthy snacks throughout the day.
VISIONS is not a teen tour with a day-to-day travel itinerary. Instead we settle into our home and join in the daily life of the neighborhood. This also is a base from which we travel to after-work activities and weekend excursions. The itineraries show some of the highlights of our time in the Dominican Republic.
First Day
During Trip
Last Day
SESSION TWO
First Day
During Trip
Last Day
We'd be happy to get you in touch with a parent whose child has already been through one of our programs.
