Eight shovels with orange handles are lined up against a weathered wooden wall outdoors, ready for action on teen service trips, with grass and dirt in the foreground.

Student service Programs

Meaningful Community Service Trips for Teens

Looking for a Teen Service Trip? Global Works has been running programs since 1989 with impactful service at the heart of each travel experience. Our focus has always been to ‘Travel with Purpose’!

Community Service with Purpose

Global Works teen service trips are built on meaningful, long-term community partnerships that invite students to collaborate with local leaders, organizations, and residents. Through sustainable, relationship-driven service, teens gain cultural understanding, leadership skills, and a deeper sense of responsibility while contributing to projects identified and guided by the community itself.

Community Collaboration at the Core

We collaborate closely with our community partners to ensure our teen travel programs are shaped by local priorities, knowledge, and long-term goals. By working with communities rather than for them, our programs foster mutual respect, shared learning, and meaningful impact for both students and host communities.

Two teenagers and an older man stand at a wooden workbench holding carpentry tools, with wooden planks and building materials in the background, embodying the spirit of teamwork found on teen service trips.
A beach at sunset with gentle waves, seaweed on the sand, and silhouettes of houses and palm trees along the shoreline.

Types of Service Trips for Teens

  • Pre-Med & Public Health: Students explore healthcare and public health directly through clinic visits and shadowing doctors
  • Working with Children: Teens support youth programs and classroom learning alongside local educators through learning, play, and cultural exchange.
  • Building Initiatives: Teens collaborate with community partners on hands-on projects supporting locally identified infrastructure needs.
  • Wildlife & Sustainability: Students work with conservation partners to protect ecosystems and promote sustainable community practices.
Six young people on teen service trips stand outdoors around a turtle on a padded platform, smiling at the camera. Some wear gloves, and one holds a clipboard. Trees and sky are visible in the background.

Impact Reports From Teen Service Trips in the Field

Explore our destinations’ impact reports to learn how we maintain sustainable service projects to create meaningful change through collaboration with local partners, real community-led projects, and lasting results you can see and feel.

A group of nine people wearing yellow and white hard hats pose together under a concrete structure at a construction site, surrounded by bags and tools—capturing the teamwork spirit often found on teen service trips.

Puerto Rico

Learn more about the impactful work groups are doing on our most popular program with our longest running service projects!

Puerto Rico Impact Report

Travel with Global Works Today

Through our student travel programs, we help travelers cultivate a spirit of curiosity, form empathetic bonds, and have adventures they’ll never forget. Enroll with us today.