Fall break service trip applications with the SCSJ are now open and will close on April 19. The SCSJ takes accepted applicants to locations across the United States, from New Mexico to West Virginia to learn about disenfranchised communities and to help solve systemic issues.
The SCSJ sponsors both spring and fall break service trips each year and this year is no different, with the applications for the events that cultivates service, justice, solidarity, simplicity, sustainability, community, and reflection open now.
Madi Barker, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and CORE team leader at the SCSJ said, “We’re one of the only completely student-run service trips across the country. Other schools have an adult chaperone but it’s just the coordinators and they’re basically the adults.”
She continued and said, “It’s a really special experience, we try and group people with folks they might not know so that you can learn with a completely new community.”
Lexi Hennes, a former service trip attendee turned CORE team leader wanted to excite students about the opportunities for their major that the SCSJ offers. She emphasized her trip to West Virginia and Indiana for trips focused on sustainability.
“One of the things I love about the trips is that you get to rank what you want to focus on and then you find out where you’re going based off of that.”
The trips are based in your interest, whether that be sustainability, working in religious based projects, or border relations. Trips based on your major and interests make these experiences worthwhile in the eyes of SCSJ.
“We pair you with what your focus is, which I think is really interesting because it take you places you may not have thought of before,” Hennes said, speaking to Creighton’s mission of caring for the whole person in the context of caring for the whole student.
The SCSJ has myriad host sites across the nation and has been working with them consistently for years.
RJ Toledo, assistant director for the SCSJ, said. “For my students, the service and justice trip gives another opportunity to meet peers that care about some of the same things and also desire to be active.”
The SCSJ’s service trips cultivate Creighton’s desire to create men and women for and with others by introducing them to systemic issues outside Creighton’s campus. The teams come back together in the weeks after the trip and discuss what they’ve learned, how they’ve grown, and the friends they’ve made along the way.
Toledo continued saying, “Our mission is to awaken hearts and lives of solidarity to build a more just world, the importance of getting involved in SCSJ is being willing to see a lot of different realities out there in the world.”
“The world and how to then integrate what they saw into their own lives, experience as students, and careers so that it’s always oriented towards trying to make a difference around the world,” Toledo said.