Surge in teens seeking and paying for summer service experience

SALT LAKE CITY — Thousands of teens are pursuing a non-traditional summer experience: They’re working hard labor for strangers in another country, and actually paying for the opportunity.

The teenagers are taking part in a program that is surging in popularity, Humanitarian Experience, known as HXP.

“I just think we live in a time when the kids that are here right now have both the responsibility and the capacity to make an impact for good on the world that they live in,” said HXP CEO Amy Antonelli.

Eight thousand kids will serve this summer, most of them members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They will travel to various countries for about 17 days and take part in carefully vetted service projects, ranging from building school classrooms in Africa to health clinics in the South Pacific.

“It’s the sweetest thing in the world when you see a kid has been working at Swig for two years and she’s out in the middle of Kenya putting on bricks that she bought,” Antonelli said.

She has an HXP “mantra” she tells teens: TWBM, “There Will Be Miracles.” And in past surveys, 98% of teens attested they’d experienced miracles on their trip.

But the promised miracles aren’t just centered on those they’re serving. Antonelli makes no apologies for the focus of the HXP mission: changing the lives of teenagers.

“We believe that we can give these kids an experience where they see the truth about who they really are, especially in the light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ,” she said.

HXP was never intended to become a big, global nonprofit. It actually started with two parents who wanted to offer their son a different, more humble perspective.

They took him to Brazil to spend the summer building a home for street children. The change in their son was so dramatic after that summer of service, other parents wanted the same for their children.

Ten years later, HXP has spread through word of mouth and now sells out within a week of open registration.

Antonelli said she doesn’t take credit for the program’s success.

“I think if I were to tell you that I was the one running this, I would be ridiculous,” Antonelli said. “This is God, and I think there are so many parents out there that are on their knees praying for their kids, and this is one way that I think he answers their prayers.”

At the HXP offices, several trip organizers and trip leaders could be seen working to meet the needs of kids out in the field.

Many of them, once HXP volunteer builders themselves, have now returned as a way to pass along the life-changing experience they received a few summers ago.

“The lights come back on in these kids’ eyes when they’re out there, and they’re doing just what Jesus said to do, which is love God, love people,” Antonelli said.

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