Campus Ministry is offering three immersion trips over spring break for students interested in broadening their horizons. Students can choose between working at Jerusalem Farm in Kansas City; the Urban Challenge in Camden, New Jersey; or the Humanitarian Respite Center in Brownsville, Texas. This will mark the first time SLUH has sent students on immersion trips since before the pandemic.

Spring break immersion trips are a cherished tradition at SLUH. They offer students a way to get away from their everyday lives and spend time with classmates in a setting outside of school. Similar to retreats, these trips offer students time for prayer and meditation, but they also contain an element of community service.

“I think just seeing what it did to my character, just the exposure to people that are marginalized or in need of service, I think being able to help them kind of enlightened me,” said senior Ben Harmon, who attended an immersion trip to Mission Appalachia in Berrien Springs in 2019. “I just wanted to search for that again. This year, I'll be going to the border, it should be a different experience. I think I'm just trying to make myself a more empathetic person.”

Due to the constant uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, SLUH decided to cancel its international immersion trip to Yoro, Honduras once again this year. Nevertheless, the domestic trips that are available this year offering unique and exciting opportunities to serve various communities.

Jerusalem Farm

Jerusalem Farm is an urban farm in the Pendleton Heights neighborhood in Kansas City. This trip has a particular emphasis on sustainability: the farm is home to chickens, grows food in its backyard, and hosts a community compost program. In addition to the work they do on the property, a large part of their service is repairing homes in their neighborhood.

According to Jerusalem Farm’s website, they are “built on the four cornerstones of Prayer, Community, Service and Simplicity.” They hope to draw from these pillars as well as Catholic Social Teaching in their mission to serve the earth, serve others, and serve God.

“It's a Catholic organization that is about simple living and being able to center yourself, connect with God, and understand people better,” said campus minister Stephen Deves. “They do serve people in the community. Particularly they work with helping people in their homes and improving rundown homes, especially those who can't afford repairs. And then they also get to do some work on the farm.”

Urban Challenge

Located just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia is Camden, New Jersey. With some of the highest poverty rates throughout the entire nation, this area is tragically in need of some assistance. The Urban Challenge helps to provide students with opportunities to truly understand the struggles and labors that people experience within a metropolitan area like Camden. 

One of the main aspects of this immersion trip is to get a new point of view of the struggle impoverished people face in the city through acts of service, connecting to the community, and daily reflections. These undertakings, like serving in a soup kitchen and helping a local retirement home, help better invoke the passion for caring for God’s people and create empathy for others that are less fortunate.

Humanitarian Respite Center

This third and final immersion trip is to the Humanitarian Respite Center on the U.S.-Mexican Border in Brownsville, Texas. This is a brand new option this year. The emphasis of this opportunity is helping with the humanitarian crisis at the border and aiding immigrants in need. 

Brownsville is nestled in the Rio Grande Valley, which runs along the border. This is a very poor area with a lot of people in need, but also an area with some of the strongest culture and faith. 

This trip will consist of a lot of service and allow students to speak personally with migrants at the border. The group will be led by Jesuit and SLUH alumnus Louie Hotop ’09.

“We made this connection that there are two young Jesuits in Brownsville, Texas, SLUH grads, whose main mission every day is working with migrants at the border,” said Deves. “They don't have an official high school trip program set up, but they know Fr. Stewart, and they're very enthusiastic. Really quickly, they jumped in and they said that we can send people down there and then helped create a pretty cool experience from the work they're doing.”

For more information and to apply for one of the immersion trips, check the recent ParentConnect email from Principal Ian Gibbons, SJ.