I had a funny experience last week. I’m working with one of the local black churches that is remodeling their second floor into a day care. The halls were full of white mission kids painting the walls. So I guess some mission kids do their good deeds closer to home.
The only kid I know who did mission trips to Costa Rica every summer is not at all wealthy. He worked as a gravedigger to make money.
Giving money through kiva is great. But it is very hands off. Yes, kids can raise money (although it is often the parents that do it), but there is something beneficial about doing something hands on. Again, not for college essay points, but just because it widens your view of the world.
Sure, but even though the parents can plant the idea and manage the venture overall, it is not that hard to let the young people do the hands on work. Fund raising, organizing and even selecting who gets the funds. I’d say there is plenty of value in that especially for the kids who can’t afford to fly off to XYZ location.
You can then volunteer for Habitat for Humanity locally, in many cases also.
This is why I don’t do social media. If you spend your summer on service trips and post pictures of the people you’ve met, you’re slammed for using them as props. If your kids go to camp or athletic recruiting events, you’re slammed for being frivolous and not helping others. If you post pictures lounging at the pool, you’re slammed for being lazy and frittering summer away. If you post pictures of studying for the SATs or working on essays you are a drone who doesn’t believe in fun. You can’t win!
I agree. Haters gotta hate, apparently.
Thanks so much @twicearound for your post #60 that said:
That’s exactly the point I was trying to make to @GMTplus7. Sure if the choice is medical professional versus chaperone needing high school student, then the medical professional is 1000% better. But most of the participants in our Africa mission trips are adults without specialized skills (other than maybe music). And I don’t think you can overestimate the significance of the ongoing relationship. The mission trip comes back with photos (and usually a video too) at the orphanage and feeding center, produced with permission and cooperation from the local staff. They also help conduct worship services and Sunday School. Our congregation knows the names, faces and personal stories of the local staff and some of the orphans. That makes a huge difference in the level of commitment and financial support coming from the check-writing members of the congregation.
“One of mine also did a trail building project as part of a camp program. No cultural exchange but lots of hard work including cutting small trees, moving rocks etc. (with fun built in). I am not sure it was different than the trip to Central America or the work he did locally with Habitat or the church homeless program.”
Posters need to read the NYT and HuffPo links, because many are still missing the main point. The trail-clearing kids were not displacing local skilled labor, which is what happens on some of these house building trips. An NGO or a church with a long-standing relationship in a country where they do their work would wisely use donated money to send skilled help and/or to hire local masons or carpenters to accomplish the same thing some of these HS kids do - for a fraction of a cost, with much better quality.
And from what I have heard, Habitat for Humanity will first check a volunteer’s skill level, then assign them to a project accordingly, so no unskilled high schoolers would build crooked walls. Houses built by HH in the US still have to be to code and pass inspections. If you have never used a hammer, you would be either taught how to use one, and if you still struggle or do not want to hammer nails, removal of construction debris and sweeping is a big part of the overall job.
I live in a “fancy” American neighborhood and people, from teachers to youth ministers, do post pics of my kids w/o permission on their personal social media accounts. Not going bananas here. If it offended me or crossed a line, I would deal with it, but I like how engaged they are in my children’s lives. In fact, a lot of people post pics of my kids without my permission. Not sure what is meant by “ok”–legal or otherwise–or what a fancy American neighborhood has to do with it. It is not only privileged youth who participate in service trips or social media. And honestly, I’m way more offended by the overall oversharing on social media. I find adults are just as bad as, and in some cases worse than, youth. LOL
My 18-year-old daughter will be going to Peru next week for a one-week volunteering stint at a large orphanage. She is going with her aunt and cousin, with a church out of Austin, Texas. This church sends large groups over, 6 times a year! Each time, every volunteer is asked to take a second suitcase full of medical and other supplies. My daughter speaks Spanish, since she studied for five months in Spain. She made the same trip last summer. We paid for her trip last summer, and her grandparents are paying this time.
Sometimes those pics are real, sometimes those sentiments are real, many who pose in those pictures also contribute their time and energy to inner city or other local organizations in need. It is not an either/or time commitment, many do both.
And, yes most kids know by now their honest commitment to provide support and aid has gotten hijacked for admission purposes by others and seldom mention it other than perhaps as an activity line item on their resume - for the students who care, it doesn’t matter what others do or think.
Sit back and send a check, how much of the money will ever go into building the school?
A “mission trip” I can kind of understand…many of these kids go with their church friends and I truly think their eyes are open to the larger world…it makes them more sympathetic to refugees, for one, once they realize how incredibly tough these lives can be. I think it’s nothing but good.
That said, while I am not wealthy, I do move around those circles sometimes and I do believe that some of these kids (with the private companies) are looking for both an exotic trip and the perception that this will help them with college.
@BunsenBurner Funny you mentioned volunteers’ skills.
I’ve just been persuaded to join a group that does remodeling projects for needy families (usually impoverished older people) in my city. “But I can’t DO anything!” I protested, because I in fact don’t know any basic carpentry, or plumbing, and I’m too short to even paint walls effectively. But the organizers talked with me at length, gave me a questionnaire and told me, based on their needs and my abilities, what jobs I would be assigned to. I was impressed. This is a serious operation, run seriously.
(My duties will be more along the clean-up and yard work variety.)
Katliamom. You’ll be a gopher! Go for this, go for that! Always needed.
Pretty soon you’ll be swinging a hammer X_X
A sounds like fun!
I’m looking forward to it, and think it will be a great learning opportunity for me. In fact, that’s how I first learned about gardening - I volunteered with a group of parents to redo landscaping at my kid’s elementary school. Fast forward to today (kiddo is out of college) and I’m a pretty decent amateur gardener.
I wouldn’t use photos of anybody in promotional materials unless I had a photo release.
I have been involved in various service trips from I think every angle possible as participant, organizer, recipient, sender of my own children.
There can be (and often is) a huge value to those going.
There can be (and often is) harm to those “receiving” the service.
Potential harms have been listed upthread: attachment disorder for orphanage kids playing with a different group of volunteers each week, poorly done work that has to be redone or takes paid work away from locals, exploitative photo ops that dehumanize, money raised for travel that might otherwise have gone to meet more critical needs
Potential values for those going are also listed upthread: life changing, eye opening experiences unlikely to be gained other ways.
I think it all comes down to the fact that no one should undertake these trips casually. When it is done right with a carefully consideration first of the benefits to those being served rather than from the perspective of those going on the trip it will be a win win.
The best trips have plenty of work, clearly defined, well within the skill set of the volunteers that enriches the local community rather than exploits or takes away from local labor.
I find many of the posts in this thread to be bothersome and hateful. Thanks for the voicing your true thoughts and obvious disdain for white kids who dared to be born into families with financial means above the norm. And OMG they then had the audacity to post a picture on Facebook. Wow…perhaps there should be a press release explaining to these kids that they need not bother doing anything beneficial to the greater good because it certainly cannot be genuine and that they are not respected or needed in society.
We live in the self-perception era: if I feel I did good, then I did good. Please don’t harsh my vibe with facts. Oy.
Why should anyone else care? In my two experience, it affected me directly. In the painting job, I had to clean up the mess left by the volunteering kids and the chaproning parent. You could say I didn’t have to. Just walk away. I couldn’t. I felt bad to people who were at the receiving end. Instead of help, they got more work to do. I knew to avoid that group the following year. In the case I was the inadequate volunteer, I wished I’d known better. I wanted to be useful and would have liked to have had a job where I can be more useful.