How does Young Neighbors in Action work?

Young Neighbors in Action is more than just a week of doing service. It is a service-learning experience. Young Neighbors is about helping participants both deepen their commitment to the call of the gospel, and work for justice in our world today. We will provide you with all of the tools and resources to help you integrate justice into your ministry all year long so that the experience your team has during their week is supported through the rest of the year.

There are three phases to Young Neighbors in Action.

Phase 1: Prepare
Following registration for Young Neighbors in Action, the team leader receives an Organizer's Manual that provides the resources needed to prepare young people, their families and the local faith community for participation in the program. The Organizer's Manual includes fully-designed, easy-to-use educational, worship, service and fundraising programs, featuring practical strategies that integrate the justice focus of this project into family and community life.

Phase 2: Experience
An intense, week-long service experience provides your team with a mix of direct service, opportunities for learning and dialogue, cross-cultural sharing, community building, prayer, and recreation. Young Neighbors helps participants experience how poverty and a lack of respect for human dignity impact the lives of real people. Young Neighbors offers participants the opportunity to change their perspectives so that they can change their world.

Phase 3: Integrate
Young Neighbors in Action keeps people growing in their commitment to service. As Follow-Up to the summer event, team leaders receive the assistance and resources needed to take their learning home: developing local plans for raising community awareness, encouraging service involvement, and helping team members integrate their new learning into their personal lives. The Follow-Up materials include practical, justice education resources and creative community service ideas that keep Young Neighbors teams connected and committed throughout the year!

Our goal is to help you provide your young people with the opportunity to serve those in need, to learn what the Scripture and our Tradition say about justice, and to hear the ways that God is calling them to bring about the Kingdom.

Young Neighbors in Action is an exciting, integrated service-learning experience for parish and school teams of older youth and adults. Young Neighbors is more than a week of service. It is an extended program that provides the experiences, skills and learning needed to make change possible. Young Neighbors features -

SERVICE - Each Young Neighbors team focuses on a single, weeklong work project. Some teams are involved heavily in direct service - working with soup kitchens, homeless shelters, recreation programs and abuse centers to help ease people's pressing needs. Others split the day between direct contact with the needy and painting and repair projects with the sponsoring agency. Still others spend their day with more physical projects, working with Habitat for Humanity or similar local groups.

LEARNING - Young Neighbors offers a solid, Catholic approach that balances service and education, doing for and learning about. Creative approaches to learning help young people gain insights into the unique treasures of Scripture and Catholic social teaching. Helping people survive their present needs is balanced in Young Neighbors with learning about how to change the things that keep people in need.

PRAYER - Opportunities for reflection, prayer and celebration of Eucharist offer participants the chance to put their week's learning into the larger context of how they are called to live as disciples throughout their lives. Prayer strengthens and supports our current involvement and moves us forward in our relationship with Jesus.

SOCIAL - Young Neighbors is also lots of fun! It offers the chance to step outside of our normal lives, experience new things, make new friends, and laugh and sing together. The schedule builds in time for community building and community recreation. Being with others who share your values and dreams makes for a great experience of Christian community.