Summer Service Immersions
Gonzaga Outreach Summer Service Trips
For information pertaining to the summer service requirement of all rising seniors, please see the Senior Summer Service Requirement Link.
Gonzaga Outreach engages students in service learning experiences through summer immersion trips. Led by the Gonzaga faculty and staff, Gonzaga outreach groups travel to a host community and serve the needs of that community. While immersed in a host community, students live simply, build community, participate in prayer and reflection, and work to understand and build social justice. Through pre-trip education, service work, reflection, prayer, and fundraising, Gonzaga Outreach forms students in teh Jesuit ideal of "men for others."
Applications for juniors who wish to volunteer on a Gonzaga summer service trip were made available to all juniors during classroom visits November 7-10; since that distribution, the applications have remained available outside campus ministry. The applications are due November 30th. Following our classroom visits, we oblige juniors to take the initiative to pick up and complete an application. Every rising senior is required to complete 20 hours of service during the summer; these trips are one way to complete those 20 hours for participating rising seniors.
In November, every junior will be briefed on this graduation requirement and the reflection paper they must write.
Applications for freshmen and sophomores who wish to volunteer on a Gonzaga summer service trip will be available in February.
Financial aid is available to applicants in need.
Trip Specific Information
Gonzaga Outreach: Apopka
10 to 12 students travel to Apopka, Florida to learn about everyday lives of farm workers and migrant workers. Gonzaga students stay in home stays with migrant families and become part of the family throughout the week. Students encounter the realities of immigration, citizenship, labor policies, and farm work from various angles.
Gonzaga Outreach: US/Mexico Border
10 students travel to Nogales, AZ and Nogales, Mexico to learn about the realities of immigration. Students work at the Kino Border Initiative, a Jesuit organization that seeks to meet the needs of migrants in Nogales. The group crosses the border into Mexico to work at the KBI soup kitchen and walks the path migrants walk through the desert that divides the US and Mexico.
Gonzaga Outreach: Camden
Rising seniors spend one week at Camden’s Oscar Romero Center. They experience urban poverty in new ways by living more simply and helping the city’s social service agencies. Each day, students venture out to different sites in small groups, allowing them to encounter justice from various angles. Students also have the opportunity to venture into the city of Philadelphia for one day of site-seeing.
Camden 2015 Fact Sheet
Gonzaga Outreach: Dominican Republic
Following junior year, a group of students spend two weeks of their summer living with families in a Dominican village, constructing sanitation facilities and experiencing a Dominican culture. This project is run through Creighton University's Insitute for Latin American Concern.
DR 2015 Fact Sheet
Gonzaga Outreach: Emmitsburg I & II
This project is open to freshmen and sophomores who are interested in growing in empathy for the rural poor. Approximately twenty-five underclassmen and six faculty chaperones spend four to five days and nights in the community of Emmitsburg, MD. While there, service projects include yard work, handy-work, and relational activities with individuals and groups who are marginalized.
Emmitsburg I & II 2015 Fact Sheet
Gonzaga Outreach: McKenna Immersion I & II
The McKenna Immersion Program is a five day encounter with urban poverty and homelessness. This program is run right out of our own McKenna Center and includes direct service as well as some advocacy work on Capitol Hill. All interested freshmen and sophomores are invited to apply.
McKenna Immersion I & II 2015 Fact Sheet
Gonzaga Outreach: New Orleans
In this program, rising seniors work and stay in the St. Bernard Parish of New Orleans. They help to rebuild houses in this area, a blue-collar fishing neighborhood that was especially hard hit by Hurrican Katrina. Students also have the opportunity to tour the city and view the rebuilding process.
New Orleans 2015 Fact Sheet
Gonzaga Outreach: Red Cloud I & II
Following junior year, students may participate in either of two week-long trips to South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. Volunteers learn about the Lakota culture while working with the Red Cloud Indian School and assisting nearby families.
Red Cloud I & II 2015 Fact Sheet
RC I Photos 2010
RC II Photos 2010