AWTT will welcome middle-school and high-school students and their faculty sponsors for the 2025-26 Samantha Smith Chellenge kick-off event at Orono High School on November 13, 2025. In 2025-26 the Samantha Smith Challenge is getting a redesign. Instead of ending the SSC year with a big celebration of student projects—as AWWT has done in past years—we’re flipping the script, starting with a launch. Think inspiration over culmination. This will be a high-energy event that sparks curiosity, introduces students to real-world issues, and helps them gear up to take action. It’s not about what they’ve done—it’s about what they’re about to do.

This year’s program theme is “Find Your Tree!” – inspired by environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill‘s portrait quote:

We all have our own version of a tree-sit that’s out there waiting for us. It’s our life’s calling. There’s a “tree” for every one of us, and this tree can call us to be bigger than we believe ourselves to be and to create a life that is more amazing than we can imagine. What’s your tree?

For the past ten years, the Samantha Smith Challenge (SSC) has proven to be a compelling project-based educational program, designed as a dynamic service-learning project that builds a bridge between the classroom and the world. Issues come alive when students are able to connect with AWTT portrait subjects who have actually fought for the same causes students identify.

Connect with AWTT experts and activists today and bring the SSC to your students. The Samantha Smith Challenge encourages every student and classroom to take the journey of truth and hope and begin building bridges of understanding right now.