 |
| (c) 2011 SYTA Youth Foundation |
The SYTA Student Youth Foundation (SYF), the philanthropic sister organization of the Student & Youth Travel Association, marked the start of its second decade of operation in July by bringing a group of 50 young adults and chaperones from New York City on a four-day, three-night sightseeing and mentoring tour of the national historical sites of Eastern Pennsylvania. Travel Insured International, an active member of the SYTA Youth Foundation, was a major sponsor.
SYTA member companies from Philadelphia, Lancaster, Hershey and Gettysburg, came together to create a four-day experience of a lifetime, Travel Insured says. The outreach event was part of the Silver Lining Program, created in 2000 as a vehicle for student and youth travel industry professionals to "give something back" to disadvantaged students and youth who overcome personal crises to produce extraordinary outcomes for themselves or for other people.
Travel Insured International is represented in the Silver Lining Program by Kevin Herlihy, Travel Insured's Director of National Accounts, who served as an industry chaperone to the New York group on its visit to Pennsylvania. Herlihy is a second-year member of the SYF Board of Directors, which organized the trip in cooperation with the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) and its Division of Runaway & Homeless Youth.
The New York City DYCD program seeks to stabilize the lives of young people who have left their homes by helping them resume and complete their education, find job opportunities and, whenever possible, reunite them with families from which they have become separated, Travel Insured says.
Each year, SYTA members sponsor deserving students and young adults for the SYF Silver Lining trip from the city in which the year's annual SYTA Conference is being held. The 2011 SYTA Conference is scheduled to meet from Aug. 19 to 23 at the Sheraton New York and Sheraton Manhattan in New York City. Travel Insured International, which contributed a combined $14,000 to the SYF in 2009 and 2010, reports it will again step up its SYF support when Herlihy makes a presentation at this year's New York City SYTA Conference.
Visit www.sytayouthfoundation.org or www.travelinsured.com