YouthWorks trips are affordable. Most trips start at $319 per person. Cost varies by location and can be found on each trip’s page. For a complete list of trips, see the Trip Finder and browse via list or map view. Cost per participant includes:

• 14 Meals
• Project Materials and Resources
• Program Resources
• Evening Activities
• Lodging
• Staffing – Recruitment & Training

If cost of the trip is an obstacle for your group or for a specific student in your group please call us to find out more about scholarship opportunities.

Safety is of the utmost importance to our organization, especially in light of COVID-19. We have an aggressive plan in place to COVID-proofing our sites for 2021 trips. We want participants to feel safe throughout the entire week, and we want parents and church leadership to know that we take every precaution in order to ensure their safety. Our staff are thoroughly trained on a variety of safety practices and procedures. With that said, we do rely on Adult Leaders and youth to help the YouthWorks staff in maintaining the safety policies and procedures for their mission week.

Our traditional mission trips run in the Summer (June & July)  – Sunday evening through Friday morning. Please note that some of the trips during the July 4th week are shortened.

If Summer doesn’t work for your group, we also offer Fall, Winter & Spring mission trips. 

Registrations for a YouthWorks mission trip must be made through a church or organization. Because of YouthWorks’ program and policies, agreements with ministry partners and to be respectful of other groups, we do not allow individuals who are not in the appropriate grades to attend the mission trip. The minimum group size is five.

• Each YouthWorks trip is categorized as middle school (junior high), mixed (middle school/high school), high school, or high school & up trip.
• 2020 Middle School trips are open to those students who have completed 6th grade in spring 2021 through students who completed 8th grade in spring 2021.
• 2021 High School trips are open to those students who have completed 8th grade in spring 2021 through seniors who have graduated in the spring of 2021.
• 2021 Mixed trips are open to those students who have completed 6th grade in spring 2021 through seniors who have graduated in the spring of 2021.
• We don’t have specific college age trips; YouthWorks hires college students to facilitate all summer mission trips, click here for more information.

Yes! In fact, Adult Leaders play a key leadership role on your youth trips. A leader needs to be at least 20 years of age and be willing to take a role of leadership with your teenagers.

• High School Trips: 1 Adult Leader for every 7 students
• Middle School Trips: 1 Adult Leader for every 5 students
• Mixed Trips: 1 Adult Leader for every 5 students

Yes. Each church group will need to conduct a national (multi-site) criminal background check and sex offender registry check on any participant (adults or students) that is 18 years and older. Church groups will then provide YouthWorks with written confirmation that every participant 18 and older has been approved to work with youth and children.

For more on this check out the Background Check FAQs on your MyTrip dashboard.

We can help you through this process. Adding spaces can happen at any time as long as we have availability. There are some deadlines for decreasing spaces, please check out the Registration Process for more specifics.

Groups are housed in a local church, school or community building. Participants need to bring their own sleeping bags, pillows and sleeping pads or air mattresses that are twin-size or smaller (Puerto Rico has a slightly different requirement). All females and males sleep in separate rooms, including married Adult Leaders. Showers are available either on site or at a nearby location. Off-Site showers may be at local community center, YMCA or public high school which may include open shower rooms or private stalls. Specific details will be available in the spring as they are confirmed in each community.

Each YouthWorks site is unique. We encourage you to take a look at the specific community pages to learn more.

It depends on the YouthWorks site. We seek to meet the needs of our community partners and their ministries. Some of our organizations prefer the same volunteers to come back each day, all week long so there is consistency in the relational aspects but also logistically as well. In other situations you might serve with multiple partners during the week.

A typical YouthWorks site has capacity for 65 to 80 participants depending on the site and week. Our goal is that as many teenagers as possible would experience mission trips so there may be multiple other groups on site during your week. The only way this would not happen is if your group were to register for the whole week (all of the spaces on site).

If your group is larger than seven people and has more than two Adult Leaders, you will most likely be split into different ministry/work crews for the week. Each crew will have anywhere from 7 – 15 people with 1 – 3 Adult Leaders depending on the needs of our service partners, the size of the group on site, and the number and size of vehicles available. Ideally, each crew will be comprised of youth from different churches along with an adult leader from each church.

Each group is responsible for transportation (vehicles, gas and mileage) to and from the YouthWorks site and throughout the week of your trip.

Bus accessible communities are designated as locations that can accommodate groups traveling on buses. Buses are defined as any vehicle that is larger than a standard 15-passenger van. We do not allow buses at all of our sites because of safety, the needs of the community and the problem of parking. Even if a site is designated as bus accessible, we still require that you provide additional transportation for participants during the week.

YouthWorks welcomes youth and adult participants with disabilities and works collaboratively with Trip Leaders to provide accommodations to need and circumstance. Due to the diverse nature of our 45+ mission sites and on-going changes at service locations, creating a coordinated plan with a Trip Leader is important to help us discern if and how the special need can be accommodated. While we are working toward greater accessibility in each of the communities we serve, there are some mission locations that are more easily equipped to handle special requests than others and some communities that cannot fully accommodate all needs. For more information, please talk with a Trip Consultant, if not yet registered for a trip, or a Mission Trip Associate, if you are registered already.

For ease of travel we recommend that each person obtain a passport. U.S. groups also have the option of obtaining a U.S. Passport Card. Visit our Travel page for more information.