Workshop highlights service projects to help poor in U.S.

Published: 2006-04-27

ATLANTA (CNS) -- Though the poverty outside the United States can be staggering, organizers of Joseph's Apprentices, a service opportunity at Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth, Mass., believe there's no place like home. At a workshop during the National Catholic Educational Association convention in Atlanta, Bishop Stang guidance director Kathleen Ruginis and the school's campus minister, Jean Revil, spoke about their highly successful service program. Held each year during spring break, Joseph's Apprentices provides students with an opportunity for prayer, service and fellowship in their own backyard. Wanting a service opportunity for their students and considering a foreign mission trip, organizers at Bishop Stang realized there were people who could be served closer to home. North Dartmouth sits between a town with residents who make a living in the textile industry, and another town whose economy is based mainly on fishing. Both towns were economically depressed. They created Joseph's Apprentices, a three-day service retreat experience, during which faculty and teens come together to serve the poor and elderly, while living in community for meals, sleep and prayer.

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .