May Breakouts
Registration for the May BreakOut trip to Nazareth Farm is now available. The trip to New Orleans is already full. If you sign up now for the New Orleans trip, you will be placed on a waiting list. Registrations for Erie, PA Benedictine Experience were due by Feb. 18.
Start your summer off right- learning and serving with others from UD! May BreakOuts are a great way to learn something new about others and yourself before you start summer classes or work.
These trips will fill on a first come-first serve basis. If a trip is full, you can still apply and be put on a waiting list. Registration will close on March 27th unless there is still space on a trip.
The cost of the trip covers transportation, lodging, and most food. Plan on bringing some spending money for snacks and other needs along the way. Some funds have been set aside for partial scholarships based on need (contact Mary Niebler for scholarship requests).
If you would like more information about any of the trips below, contact Mary Niebler at 937-229-2012 or e-mail her mniebler1@udayton.edu.
Nazareth Farm
Doddridge County, WV
May 5-11
Cost: $250
"I am Appalachia! In my veins runs fierce mountain pride...
I tell you, stranger,
hill folk know what life is all about..."
-Muriel Miller Dressler
Nazareth Farm is about serving those in living in poverty, and trying to understand what Jesus was asking of us when he said, Love your neighbor. In order to fully reflect on the meaning of being a neighbor, components of prayer, community, simplicity, and service to others are important all of which can be found at Nazareth Farm.
Here at Nazareth Farm, volunteers can expect to rise early and begin each day with prayer to center our thoughts and motives. After prayer, we typically do chores (Around the farm grounds) for about 45 minutes to work up an appetite for a good breakfast prepared by the House Manager and volunteers. The rest of the day is spent at the work sites. Some jobs entail roofing, insulation, painting, dry-walling, digging for septic systems, etc (no prior experience is necessary! The work site coordinators will teach you everything you need to know).
At the work site, volunteers are encouraged to visit with the people with whom they're working. Each family we work with has its own story. Many of the people we serve are elderly, disabled or have low-paying jobs that do not provide the income to hire someone nor the time to do the work themselves.
After some free time and dinner, we end each day with prayer and reflection. The free time before dinner and after prayer is ideal for quiet journaling, hiking, playing games, bathing in the creek, joining in a campfire sing-along, or counting the stars.
So, what can be expected on a day at the Farm? A miracle.
That's what happens every day here. That's what happens every day everywhere. It just takes us noticing the things around us as miracles and not ordinary or mundane to make them so.
Visit www.nazarethfarm.org for more information.
Project Homecoming and Duchesne House
New Orleans, LA
May 5-11
Cost: $200
This trip is a great combination of hands-on service, reflection, prayer, learning and cultural immersion. The experience will include a tour of neighborhoods still recovering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, but also an overview of what has been done to improve the city. The group will do hands-on service continuing the rebuilding process in New Orleans' neighborhoods through Project Homecoming. Evenings will include guest speakers or other opportunities to deepen understanding of the political, environmental, ethnic and class dimensions of the suffering brought on by hurricane Katrina and theological reflection on the topics. The trip will conclude with a visit to the historic French Quarter. The group will stay at the Sisters of the Sacred Heart’s Duchesne House and volunteer with Project Homecoming.
The trip is already full. Get on a waiting list by clicking here
Women in Community: A Benedictine Experience
May 4-11, 2012
Community. Hospitality. These two values are so important to UD and the Marianist charism. Spend a week with a community of women who also hold these two values as core to who they are – the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA. Participants on this team will experience the Benedictine model of faith, community, prayer, and social action as they help with a variety of the sisters' programs which include: a soup kitchen, food pantry, an inner-city youth art house, a welfare to work program, migrant HeadStart, Pax Christi, and many others. Participants will participate in the community life and prayer life of the monastery; experience the social justice initiatives of the sisters; and intentionally reflect upon the roles of deep listening, radical hospitality, and commitment to community play in relationship to faith, urban poverty, and social justice. Come and be part of a community of women changing the world!
Cost $250