Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is the oldest outdoor group in the United States. Created in 1876 to explore and preserve the White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has expanded throughout the northeastern U.S., with 12 chapters stretching from Maine to Washington, D.C. The AMC's 275,000 members, advocates, and supporters mix outdoor recreation, particularly hiking and backpacking, with environmental activism. Additional activities include cross-country skiing, whitewater and flatwater canoeing and kayaking, sea kayaking, sailing, rock climbing and bicycle riding. The Club has about 2,700 volunteers, who lead roughly 7,000 trips and activities per year. The organization publishes a number of books, guides, and trail maps.
The buddy system is a procedure in which two individuals, the "buddies", operate together as a single unit so that they are able to monitor and help each other. As per Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the phrase "buddy system" goes as far back as 1942. Webster goes on to define the buddy system as "an arrangement in which two individuals are paired .” The buddy system is basically working together in pairs in a large group or alone. Both the individuals have to do the job. The job could be to ensure that the work is finished safely or the skill/learning is transferred effectively from one individual to the other.
Service-learning is an educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs.
Sigma Chi (ΣΧ) International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more than 350,000 members. The fraternity was founded on June 28, 1855, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, by members who split from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
Alpha Sigma Alpha (ΑΣΑ) is a United States National Panhellenic sorority founded on November 15, 1901, at the Virginia State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia.
Young Life is an evangelical Christian organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado which focuses on young people in middle school, high school, and college. Week-long Summer camps, often of resort-quality, are a major focus.
A field trip or excursion is a journey by a group of people to a place away from their normal environment.
The Junior State of America, abbreviated JSA, is an American non-partisan youth organization. The purpose of JSA is to help high school students acquire leadership skills and the knowledge necessary to be effective debaters and civic participants. JSA is sponsored by the Junior State of America Foundation Inc., which also operates the JSA Summer Schools. The Junior State of America is student-run, the largest such organization in the United States.
United Synagogue Youth (USY) is the youth movement of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ). It was founded in 1951, under the auspices of the Youth Commission of what was then the United Synagogue of America.
Bnei Akiva is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world, with over 125,000 members in 42 countries. It was first established in Mandatory Palestine in 1929.
Chi Omega is a women's fraternity and a member of the National Panhellenic Conference, the umbrella organization of 26 women's fraternities.
The Beacon School is a selective college-preparatory public high school in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City near Times Square and the Theater District. Beacon's curriculum exceeds the standards set by the New York State Regents, and as a member of the New York Performance Standards Consortium, its students are exempt from taking most Regents exams. Instead, students present performance-based projects at the end of each semester to panels of teachers. Beacon offers opportunities to participate in student organizations, varsity athletics, community service, and international travel.
Greenwood College School is an independent co-educational middle school and high school that is located on the south-east corner of Mount Pleasant Road and Davisville Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Trout Unlimited (TU) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of freshwater streams, rivers, and associated upland habitats for trout, salmon, other aquatic species, and people. It is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization began in 1959 in Michigan. It has since spread throughout the United States and has local chapters in nearly every State in the United States.
Best Buddies International is an American nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. It consists of volunteers that create opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The program's main purpose is to allow volunteers to be paired up with a buddy with an intellectual and developmental disability and provide them with a friend or a mentor. Best Buddies is the world's largest organization dedicated to ending the social, physical and economic isolation of the 200 million people with IDD. It is an international movement that has spread to over 54 countries worldwide.
An alternative break is a trip where a group of college students engage in volunteer service, typically for a week. Alternative break trips originated with college students in the early 1980s as a counter to "traditional" spring break trips. These trips are usually led by 2 "site leaders" who are students that have already participated in an alternative break and have gone through extensive leadership training.
Jewish Veg is an international 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose mission is to encourage and help Jews to embrace plant-based diets as an expression of the Jewish values of compassion for animals, concern for health, and care for the environment. Jewish Veg was formerly called Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) and, prior to that, the Jewish Vegetarian Society of America.
The Nativ College Leadership Program in Israel is a nine-month, post-high-school gap year program in Israel for mostly North American Jews. It operates under the auspices of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and draws its participants mostly from USY and Ramah camps.
Break Away is a national nonprofit organization that promotes the development of quality alternative break programs through training, assisting, and connecting campuses and communities. The organization has chapters on about 200 college campuses throughout the United States. Break Away holds training sessions for directors at each chapter school, who then train the student leaders and participants. An alternative break consists of a group of college students who serve a community with a focus on a specific social issue for a specific amount of time, whether it is a weekend or a week. Most trips are weeklong trips, with the majority over college spring breaks. 60% of trips occur over spring breaks and 15% occur over winter breaks. The social issue pertains to the community to which the group goes. Break Away emphasizes service-learning in which group members learn about the community they will be serving and how to avoid voluntourism. Break Away encourages student leaders, with each trip consisting of student leaders, student participants, a partner organization, and most of the time, a learning partner. By emphasizing the Active Citizenship Continuum and the Eight Components of a Quality Alternative Break, Break Away hopes to produce valuable alternative breaks, which will then lead participants to become more aware and active in their community. Break Away has about 200 chapter schools, more than 500 nonprofit partnerships, and thousands of participants and alumni worldwide. Just in 2014, there were a total of 1,551 trips with over 20,000 participants, which equates to over 1 million hours of service. Of the 1,551 trips in 2014, 1,334 were domestic and 251 were international.
Marjana Chowdhury is a Bangladeshi-American model, actress, philanthropist and beauty queen. She was most recently crowned Miss Alaska World 2019 and competed in October 2019 for the title of Miss World America 2019, where she placed in the Top 25. She was Miss Bangladesh 2017 and represented Bangladesh at the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant in the Philippines in November, 2017. She previously won the 2016 Miss Bangladesh USA competition, which was the first pageant she entered. Chowdhury is currently working at an investment management firm in New York City.