Are there any programs like the Peace Corps. but for highschool students during the summer?

Question

I really want to go to another country and help out a foreign community somehow during the summer or a school vacation next year.

Answer 1

The economics are against it, sadly. For the money it would take to send an unskilled American high school student abroad, with NO salary but to feed and house him (her), a charity could hire 2 - 3 unskilled locals to do the same job; their money would go 2 - 3 times further.

There are none that I know of save the religious ones. Ask your church, or your denomination's state-wide or nation-wide organization, if they send a bus full of eager teens to Mexico to paint orphanages or something. Expect to pay for your own trip, with sponsors from your church.

If you wouldbe satisfied getting 1,000 miles from home, consider The Student Conservation Association:

http://www.thesca.org/

My daughter spent a summer with them. You pay for your food and air fare, they loan you a tent. You spend 4-6 weeks doing manual labor in a national park in the USA with a great bunch of other kids. They will take volunteers as young as 16. Their leaders are 21 or older (usually not much older; college or graduate students), and a ranger looks in on you every couple of days.