Preparations are underway for a mission trip by the Christian Ethics class to take a mission trip to Mexico during the upcoming Easter break, board members of the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division were told at their monthly meeting on Wednesday, held in Estevan.
There are 14 students going on the trip from the Weyburn Comp, Estevan Comp and Radville Regional High School to Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The trip will be held from Mar. 25 to April 3, and will see the students travel to a small village outside of the city to work with local residents in developing kitchen and washroom facilities.
The group will also visit a school to volunteer and assist, and there will be cultural component as the student will visit a monastery, a museum, an artisan market and swim in some springs.
“This mission activity gives students the best opportunity to demonstrate the skills, behaviours and attitudes studied in the Christian Ethics courses,” said instructor Lynn Colquhoun.
“This type of journey promotes lifelong stewardship and a chance to serve the people in Cuernavaca, to let the light of Christ that is within to shine brightly,” she added.
The students will be doing some fundraising to help with the expenses of the trip as well as community service efforts.
The chaperones will participate in all lead-up activities to help finance their participation.
The cost will include a $1,000 deposit from each family, and the cost will be about $2,000 per student, and $12,000 for the chaperones and coordinators.
The staff and chaperones will include the instructors, Mary Ellen Barreth and Colquhoun, Holy Family staff member Agnes Plourde-Doran, Southeast Cornerstone staff member Breanne Swarbrick, trip facilitator Joan Rink from the Archdiocese of Regina, and volunteer parent chaperone Roberta DeRosier.
Three fundraising events have been arranged so far, including a pasta night in Weyburn to be held at McKenna Hall on Tuesday, March 3, with a cost of $12 per adult or $6 for children.
A steak night will be held in Estevan at The Flats on Sunday, Feb. 21, for $25 a ticket, and a “Dine by Design” event will be held in Regina by the Holy Child Parish on Sunday, Feb. 28, at a cost of $40 per person.
In other business at the Holy Family board, a presentation was made about the Practical and Applied Arts program at St. Michael School, involving Colquhoun and Darryl Postnikoff. They have developed a Design and Development course for the Grade 9 students, which has replaced the former courses of sewing and industrial arts.
This course gives the students the opportunity to explore communications and media, accounting and design process as they prepare to showcase a project.
Students have been working in a digital environment and will host a showcase towards the end of the school year, said Colquhoun.
Postnikoff has introduced the students to a variety of skills and strategies for preparing to create, market and produce a new and innovative product or service.
Colquhoun noted that he has engaged both community experts and global partners in reaching the students, some of whom were very successful in the recent YouthBiz student entrepreneurship program put on Sunrise Community Futures.
