Detroit Catholic Worker - Detroit, MI
Cost: $275
Focus: Justice & Advocacy in Detroit 

This ABI is an opportunity to learn and work with people in Detroit around food justice, urban farming, the water crisis and other movements for justice. The group will live in community with members of The Detroit Catholic Worker (Day House) and can expect meaningful conversation and action around nonviolence, voluntary poverty, hospitality and all pillars of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Click the image above to immerse in Detroit, MI

Host community: https://sites.google.com/a/dayhouse.org/www/ 

Appalachian Institute - Wheeling, West Virginia
Cost: $275
Focus: Healthcare, Appalachian Culture

This immersion exposes students to the difficulties of health care in rural areas to low-income individuals who have significant chronic health problems based on work-related demands, lifestyle choice, and heredity, but neither the transportation nor insurance needed to access the limited health services available in their communities. Participants can expect meaningful relationships with the people of Appalachia as well as education about some of the big picture issues facing the area including a visit to a mountain top removal site.

Click the image above to immerse into Appalachian Institute

Host Community: Appalachian Institute.

Bethlehem Farm - West Virginia
Cost: $275
Focus: Rural Housing Insecurity, Appalachian Culture

Bethlehem Farm is a Catholic community in Appalachia that transforms lives through service with the local community and the teaching of sustainable practices. Volunteers are invited to live the Gospel cornerstones of service, prayer, simplicity and community. While the primary work at Bethlehem Farm is home repair, volunteers can also expect meaningful relationships with the people of Appalachia as well as education around sustainability including solar power, local food production and overall waste reduction. The staff at Bethlehem Farm facilitates the week and Loyola volunteers will join groups from 2-3 other Universities.

Click the image above to immerse in Bethlehem Farm

Host Community: Bethlehem Farm

Nazareth Farm - West Virginia
Cost: $275
Focus: Rural Housing Insecurity, Appalachian Culture

Nazareth Farm is a Catholic community in rural West Virginia that transforms lives through a service-retreat experience. Founded on the cornerstones of community, simplicity, prayer, and service, Nazareth Farm seeks to empower and work with its neighbors while celebrating God in all things and especially the richness of Appalachian culture. While the primary work at Nazareth Farm is home repair, volunteers can also expect meaningful relationships with the people of Appalachia as well as education around the issues effecting the local community. The staff at Nazareth Farm facilitates the week and Loyola volunteers will join groups from 2-3 other Universities.

Click the image to immerese into Nazareth Farm

Host Community: Nazareth Farm  

Joppa Mountain - Tennessee
Cost: $275
Focus: Rural Housing, Appalachian and Latino Culture

This ABI is open to First Year Students ONLY.

Joppa Mountain is a mission of Glenmary Home Missioners, a Catholic society in Grainger County, TN, which is a unique community of both Appalachian and Latino cultures. Volunteers will spend the week doing home repair in the area and visiting with local residents. Evenings will be spent visiting local church communities for church services and learning more about the community. This retreat-like immersion experience in Eastern Tennessee blends service, education, prayer, reflection and sharing in an environment of simple living. The staff at Joppa Mountain facilitates the week and Loyola will join groups from 1-2 other Universities for the week.

Host Community: Joppa Mountain and Glenmary Missioners

Pine Ridge Reservation - South Dakota
Cost: $275
Focus: Education and Lakota Culture

The Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is home to the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe of Native Americans. Pine Ridge is beautiful in its rolling hills, and its spiritual and cultural heritage and yet tragic in its history of massacre, broken treaties and poverty. Students will be immersed into the unique homeland of the Lakota people, witnessing both the poverty and the hope. We will meet and work with students and teachers at Red Cloud Indian School, a Jesuit-run Elementary and High School that seeks to promote Lakota and Catholic values among the youth. Students will plan and present an original mini-curriculum so this ABI is especially geared toward education majors. Students who participate in this ABI must complete a VIRTUS Safe Environment Training through the Catholic Church. 

Host Community: Pine Ridge Reservation

 

Resurrection Catholic Mission: Montgomery, AL
Cost: $275
Focus: Civil Rights

Resurrection Catholic Missions of the South was founded in 1943 and operates programs focused on education, evangelization, healthcare, social services and advocacy. Some of the service opportunities include working in Resurrection Catholic School (tutoring, P.E., reading), assisting with the elderly outreach program and working in the mission office. This immersion will begin with the celebration of Sunday Mass and will include a visit to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham and other historical sites in the area as well as a dinner and conversation with staff from the Southern Poverty Law Center and local people involved directly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (as available).

Host Community: https://www.rcmsouth.org/ 

Hubbard House - East St. Louis, IL
Cost: $275
Focus: Urban Issues

Hubbard House in East St. Louis, IL is an extension of the Catholic Urban Programs whose mission is to advance the dignity of the human person through compassionate response to human needs, advocacy for justice, and the empowerment of individuals and families to reach their full potential. Live and learn about the history and struggles of East St. Louis while volunteering with members of Hubbard House during your immersion. Through advocating and discussing systematic change and serving those who serve, participants can gain a greater understanding of the issues surrounding the persistence of urban poverty.

Host Community: Hubbard House 

Tantre Organic Farm - Chelsea, MI
Cost: $275
Focus: Environmental Issues

Tantre Farm is a certified organic farm 20 miles west of Ann Arbor, MI. The farm sells its produce, including various fruit crops, 50 varieties of vegetables and a small variety of herbs and flowers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, at local stores and restaurants as well as at area farmer's markets. The farm is situated on 40 acres of wetland, woods, and sandy-loam fields. Richard and Deb, along with their daughter Ariana, live on-site year round. Seasonal workers, interns and volunteers join the family at various parts of the year, living and working together. Participants should be prepared for early mornings, homegrown food, manual labor and conversations about food sustainability and our ecological footprint.

Host Community: Tantre Organic Farm

Jerusalem Farm - Kansas City, MO
Cost: $275
Focus: Urban Housing Insecurity

Jerusalem Farm is a Catholic intentional community located in Kansas City, MO. Built on the four cornerstones of prayer, community, service and simplicity Jerusalem Farm strives to transform lives through service retreat experiences, sustainable living and home repair. Most of the physical labor at Jerusalem Farm is home repair, but volunteers might also work at a soup kitchen/food pantry or tutor youth at an after school program. There will also be work each day in the kitchen and garden as well as dialogue about justice, sustainability and current events in Kansas City. The staff at Jerusalem Farm facilitates the week and Loyola volunteers will join groups from 2-3 other Universities.

Click the image above to immerse in Jerusalem Farm

Host Community: Jerusalem Farm

Campus Pride - Charlotte, NC
Cost: $275
Focus: LGBTQ+ Advocacy

Mission: Campus Pride serves LGBTQ and ally student leaders and campus organizations in the areas of leadership development, support programs and services to create safer, more inclusive LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities. It exists to develop, support and give “voice and action” in building future LGBTQ and ally student leaders. Students on this immersion will learn the basics of LGBTQ activism and outreach, interact with the LGBTQ community in Charlotte, draw connections to making changes on campus as well as other objectives that build a long-lasting foundation of understanding.

Host community: https://www.campuspride.org/ 

Carriage House - Fort Wayne, IN
Cost: $125
Focus: Healthcare

October 4th - October 8th

Carriage House is a program with the singular mission of assisting people in their recovery from mental illness and reintegration into the community. In a non-traditional setting, "members" work side-by-side with staff on meaningful activities, building the confidence and self-esteem necessary to reclaim their lives. Through assistance with employment, education, housing, benefits, and other needs, the Carriage House ensures that members have real opportunities to return to their lives. Students will spend the week at Carriage House in Fort Wayne, IN sharing life and learning with members of the community, working side by side with people currently in treatment, and spending time learning about the advocacy Carriage House is participating in to take away the stigma that comes with mental illness. 

Host Community: Carriage House - Fort Wayne, IN 

L'Arche Daybreak - Toronto, ON
Cost: $275
Focus: Individuals with special needs

L’Arche communities bear witness to the reality that persons with intellectual disabilities possess inherent qualities of welcome, wonderment, spirituality, and friendship. L'Arche makes explicit the dignity of every human being by building inclusive communities of faith and friendship where people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together. Students will spend the week in the Daybreak L'Arche community in Toronto, Canada learning from and sharing life with the core members of community while doing projects as the houses need them. The Daybreak community was famously where Henri Nouwen wrote much of his spiritual writing. A valid passport is needed for this ABI.

Host community: http://www.larchedaybreak.com/ 

El Paso / Juarez, Mexico
Cost: $550
Focus: Immigration and Refugee Resettlement

Through dynamic educational experiences, The Columban Mission Center in El Paso, Texas, offers exposure programs to border issues — poverty, migration and human rights. These immersion programs offer groups the opportunity to interact with our neighbors in the U.S. and Mexico.  The delegations visit with individuals and organizations that provide basic assistance to migrants, create community-based alternatives, advocate for just policies, and much more. You will meet with people that are directly affected by current economic and immigration policies, and you’ll be given tools and resources to work for justice.  

Host Organization: Columban Border Mission

(details for all locations are based on most-recent program offerings and could change for future immersions)

 

Crossroads Ministries: Louisville, Kentucky
Cost: $275
Focus: Immigration and Refugee Resettlement

CrossRoads Ministries is committed to engaging young adults in an urban retreat experience based on outreach to the margins, prayer, service and bridging communities for justice. This ABI will be a guided immersion experience into inner city Louisville and will involve working with children and various local urban social service agencies, especially those that assist refugee families in entry and adjustment to the United States. This ABI is facilitated by the staff at CrossRoads and participants can expect an emphasis on authentic relationships, Catholic Social Teaching and prayerful reflection and conversation.

Host Organization: CrossRoads Ministries

 

(details for all locations are based on most-recent program offerings and could change for future immersions)

 

Dominican Republic
Cost: $950
Focus: International

This 8-day immersion program explores some of the social and political issues in and around Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. Participants will explore issues relating to education, labor, immigration, race, and healthcare and some of the work that Jesuits and other organizations are doing for justice. Immersion will include: lectures at a Jesuit social think-tank, visits to inner-city neighborhoods, sugar farm villages, nonprofits, and various speakers on the issues that affect the people of the Dominican Republic.

Host Organization: Caribbean Social Immersion Program & Antilles Province Jesuits