May 3rd 2020: Note From Our Founder

Trip of a Lifetime has been a passion project of mine since I first went on a teen tour to the West Coast in the Summer of 2007 and the experience opened me up to how important traveling is to students and communities everywhere. Fast forward to today and the organization has raised nearly $1M, been featured by the NYC Department of Education and Wall Street Journal, and most importantly has sent over 180 students on transformative summer travel experiences.

Like many executives and non-profit founders, I agonized over whether we should still select students for our program given the uncertainty (and craziness) over the past few months. The easiest move would have been to cancel the program out-right but one thing became clear to me after talking to schools, students, and families: students need the opportunity to travel more than ever in a safe environment.

Across New York City (and likely the country and world), low income students are receiving fewer enrichment opportunities in our virtual world. Most after school clubs, sports teams, and summer programs have been cancelled, leaving students with fewer opportunities to turn their passions into realities. When we travel, it opens us up to learn more about the people and communities around us and develop our own perspectives, skills that are absolutely critical in our youth if we want to come out of this a stronger community than ever.

With the help of an amazing application review team, I'm pleased to announce that we have selected 12 students to participate in our program as Trip of a Lifetime scholars. If it's deemed safe by our trip partners and medical professionals, our accepted students will travel on 2-3 week teen tours and community service programs to the West Coast. However if it is not, the students will still receive access to our alumni community along with priority consideration for next year's program or a stipend for a future travel experience. No matter what the next few weeks have in store, these students will still get the travel enrichment opportunity they need and deserve and we are beyond excited to see where travel takes them.

Hope everyone continues to stay safe and hopefully #travelchangesyou in the months ahead.

Stan Rosenberg

April 18th 2020:

Hi Everyone,

Hope you and your families are continuing to stay safe.

I first want to thank every student, teacher, parent, and supporter for their patience these past few weeks. These are truly unprecedented times and all of you have been beyond understanding as we worked to lay out a safe and responsible plan for this summer.

After consulting with our Board of Directors, trip partners, and other nonprofit organizations, we have decided to still award students summer travel scholarships for this summer with a few caveats:

• Number of Selected Students: We will be selecting 10-12 students to participate in our program this summer. This smaller number allows us to ensure a personalized orientation process and gives us flexibility in case trips need to be cancelled
• Location: All trips this summer will take place within the United States and be between 2-3 weeks long. This is to ensure the utmost safety of every participant and is consistent with our trip partner Rein Teen Tours. 
• Trip Dates: The trips for students that are selected will likely take place between July 15^th and August 21^st. We are not running any trips leaving in late June or Early July this year to give more time for the situation to improve. If these dates don’t work for you, please let us know when we contact you so we can select another worthy applicant.
• Possibility of Cancelation: If our partners at Rein Teen Tours deem it unsafe to send students on trips, Trip of a Lifetime will also suspend its trips for this summer.  We will keep everyone posted and will let you know as soon as any final decision is made. Should that be the case, we will do our best to award some type of travel related grant to all accepted students or award priority consideration for next year’s trips (details to be determined)

In terms of next steps, we will be reaching out to all Students (and their parents and teachers) this week and inform them on whether they were selected as a finalist for the program. Please check your email daily to make sure you don’t miss anything. This will be a very difficult decision, as we have received so many great applications and have only limited trip openings. 

If you are selected as a finalist, you will be required to participate in a short phone interview so we can confirm your availability for the trip dates, get to know you better and answer any questions you and your families have about our plan for this summer. You can also let us know at that point whether you would like to remove your name from consideration.

Our plan is to wrap up the entire selection process no later than Sunday May 2^nd and please don’t hesitate to email us at applications@projecttoal.org if you have any questions.

Thank you for your support and we’re excited to do our part this year to provide much needed travel experiences to students in the safest environment possible.

Best,

Stan

April 12th 2020:

April 5th 2020:

Hope everyone continues to stay safe and healthy.

As an update, the status of this summer's trips is still the same as last week. Our selection process is currently on hold and we'll be sending out weekly updates with the goal of making a final decision later this month.

Our team had a great discussion with Rein Teen Tours and other summer programs this past week and they, much like Trip of a Lifetime, are exploring all possible options. We also hosted our first Virtual Alumni meetup this past Sunday and had 15+ alumni join for some discussion and games. Speaking to our alumni always reminds me in the power of community and how a strong support network makes tough times just a bit easier.

Reach out with any questions and look out for the next update next week.

Best,
Stan Rosenberg
Trip of a Lifetime Founder

March 29th 2020:

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're having a nice weekend.

As an update, the status of this summer's trips is still the same as last week. Our selection process is currently on hold and we'll be sending out weekly updates with the goal of making a final decision no later than April 15th.

While all of us can't travel physically right now, it doesn't mean you can't stop still virtually exploring the world around you. Here's a great article listing some of the Best Virtual Trips you can take right now from your computer or smartphone. I personally would recommend the one of Japan.

Reach out with any questions and look out for the next update next weekend, if not sooner. Most importantly, hope you and your families are staying safe.

Best,
Stan

March 22nd 2020:

Dear Applicants, Parents, Counselors, Alumni, and Friends,

As you are all well aware, the novel coronavirus pandemic has affected all of our daily lives. Things we once took for granted such as going to school, family gatherings, and especially travel have been upended and the past few weeks have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced before in the 11 years Trip of a Lifetime has been operating.

After much consideration, our Board of Directors and I have decided to put our selection process for the Summer of 2020 on hold for the next few weeks.

First and foremost, we will not run any programs if it is deemed by medical experts to be unsafe. We are in close communication with our trip partners, and should their programs be rescheduled, our trips will be postponed too. We also acknowledge a lot can change in the coming days and weeks and understand that the need for travel experiences will be more important than ever. Our goal is to make a final decision about the status of these trips no later than April 15^th and we will be sending out weekly email updates until then.

I want to give a big thank you to everyone that has stayed patient with us during this process. It is people like you that make Trip of a Lifetime possible.

To play our small part, our team has decided to donate $2,425 to the Donors Choose Keep Kids Learning Fund. This represents a $25 donation in honor of each of the 97 students that applied this summer and will help support supplies for schools in the Tri-State Area. We’ll also be reaching out to our academic partners in the coming days with additional grant opportunities to fuel virtual travel and learning experiences for their students and will be hosting a virtual alumni social next weekend.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach us by email at applications@projecttoal.org or by phone at 914-874-1051.

I hope you and your families stay safe and hopefully we will all get the opportunity to experience the positive benefits of travel once this is over.

Best,

Stan Rosenberg

Trip of a Lifetime Founder and Executive Director