How to Plan a Service Trip

 

How to plan an Alternative Spring Break or Alternative Break or Spring Break Service Trip

Tips for Catholic Campus Ministers and their College Students

 

Catholic Campus Minister Julie wrote this in 2005 to help colleagues plan service trips of their own.

I am writing this in response to the recent calamities in the Gulf Coast region.  I have planned and implemented six domestic service trips and four international service trips in my six years as a Catholic Campus Minister.  Our group of 20 undergraduate students who had planned to go to Central America on our annual trip there, has discerned instead to go to the Gulf Coast in January.  This is a huge undertaking logistically   I want simply to share what we have learned over these years in hopes that it will make your own efforts at planning a service trip (over spring break, etc.) more fruitful.  These instructions are general at this point, but will be refined as the needs in the Gulf Coast region are clearly identifiable and particular agencies and individuals emerge as obvious contacts for Catholic Campus Ministers planning a service trip to that region.

 

Logistics

Transportation:  Does your ministry have a vehicle?  If not, what churches, schools or diocese-owned vehicles are available to you? What permission do undergraduates need to assist in the driving? 

Food: What facilities are available for eating out? For cooking?  Need you bring your own groceries?  Can you buy them there?  You do not want to be a burden on a community during their time of need, so you must be responsible and plan ahead to provide for your group's needs.

Lodging: Will you be able to stay in the town where you will be serving? Will you have to "commute in" from a motel, hotel, retreat center, host family homes, campground, gymnasium floor, community center, church hall or elsewhere?

Showers

Destination: In this instance, we must learn to "live with the ambiguity" as we wait to learn which areas need what kind of assistance.  For now, spend your time in prayer for the people you will encounter on your trip.

Partnering Agencies: There are myriad Catholic and other humanitarian agencies hard at work right now. Again, we must be patient and wait until they are ready (early October) to assess future needs. For now, the keys are patience and prayers.

Projects:  It is necessary that trip leaders/campus ministers go to the location in advance in order to assess the situation.  A few days spent down there in advance of the group will give you time to work out kinks, imagine various scenarios and their solutions, begin to build relationships with people in that community, and to select a project which is consistent with the ability of your group members and reasonable for the amount of time you have allotted.

Daily Schedule: Our daily schedule has time built-in to relax and reflect at the end of each day: 

7 Wake up & breakfast

8 Head to work site

12 lunch

3 Come home

5 Mass

8 Reflection and Prayer

Obviously, the unplanned time is free time.

Alcohol Policy: Trust me, you will save yourself a lot of trouble if you announce unequivocally and well in advance, that there will be no consuming of alcohol over the course of the trip. Period.

Prayer Partners: In the fall, I pair up students using various criteria to match them. These partners are to pray for each other in advance of the trip and during the trip they work together cleaning up meals, helping to prepare meals and leading our nightly reflection and prayer time.

Prayer  The role of prayer in planning a service trip cannot be ignored.  We ask each participant to ask thirty people to pray for them in advance and during the trip. Our track record of zero serious illnesses and injuries and the overall positive nature of our trips is attributed to the prayers of our supporters.

            We meet as a group each Tuesday night for one hour in the fall semester before our January trip.  This time is spent in prayer, planning the practical matters of the trip, bonding as a group and making decisions. This time is crucial for the group as it gives you the opportunity to get to know them in advance.  You will be depending heavily on one another throughout the trip and it is important to have a foundation of trust and rapport established well in advance.

Expenses: Think of who can assist your group financially.  The school?  Local parish? Diocese? In-kind donations? We ask each student to ask for donations from family and friends.  Cast the net far and wide and you will find people are very generous.  Brainstorm about fundraisers too.