VISIONS BLACKFEET

This summer I lived and volunteered on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation with VISIONS Service Adventures. VISIONS combined my favorite things- travel, learning, and community service. What I love about VISIONS is that the main focus of the trip is volunteering. Although there is still plenty of time to relax and explore, serving the community is the top priority. The weekday was structured around different worksites and projects. Every day we would choose between the different volunteering opportunities: soup kitchens, restocking food pantries, building handicap ramps for elders, repainting buildings… The schedule was very flexible and there were even more opportunities to find new work and take initiative in the community.

Besides the work, we also attended many cultural and religious ceremonies. VISIONS has worked with the Blackfeet people for almost thirty years, allowing the VISIONS program access to community celebrations as honored old friends. Knowing so many people in the community really allowed us to fully integrate into the community and got us invited to many sacred rituals. We attended sweat lodges, the sacred Sun Dance ceremony, and multiple powwows. Many of these rituals are not accessible to outsiders, and we were only able to attend these ceremonies because the locals know and trust VISIONS. They trusted us so much that they even let us help build the Sun Dance lodge and set up the tipis needed for the ceremony. Learning and experiencing this vibrant culture was only made possible because of VISIONS. I am so grateful to be one of the few outsiders who was able to experience it.