Syosset High School student Georgia Gardner spent a month of her summer vacation volunteering in a remote native Alaskan village as part of an innovative adventure travel program.
As a part of VISIONS Service Adventures, Gardner joined a group of high school students doing volunteer projects while living in an indigenous Athabasca village in the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. About 100 people live in the village, situated on the Tetlin River.
As part of her service, Gardner helped build an outdoor cooking facility for use at community events, a project that involved clearing and leveling ground, measuring and cutting lumber, digging postholes, placing and securing post beams, erecting and staining walls, framing the roof and installing screens and windows.
Other services the teens provided to Tetlin included moving an outdoor community basketball court, assisting community elders with chores and small projects, and organizing a small day camp for local children.
While volunteering their time, Gardner and her colleagues also took the time to backpack and ice-climb while learning about Athabasca culture, view wildlife and tour an old mining town.
VISIONS operates similar volunteer travel opportunities all over the world, including Cambodia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Nicaragua, well as domestic rural or Native American experiences in Mississippi and Montana.
