Catholic campers fix Q-C corners in ‘Just5Days’

Aug 07, 2015

ROCK ISLAND, Illinois: Catholic youth groups from four states spent five days helping 10 local social service agencies with projects.

Julia Burrill, 15, of Sacred Heart Church, Moline, said she probably would have just slept in if she hadn’t participated in the Just5Days Mission project.

Burrill and 64 other Catholic youths from Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Wisconsin did a variety of projects for the social-service agencies. Accompanied by 19 adult chaperones, campers stayed at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Davenport, said Mary-Ellen Pfeiffer, youth ministry coordinator for a Davenport Diocese West Cluster.

It was the second year the Davenport Diocese hosted a Just5Days camp. It’s a programme designed by the Center for Ministry Development in Gig Harbor, Wash., that Ms Pfeiffer learned about when getting a youth ministry certification from that ministry development center in the 1990s. Camp activities are designed for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students, she said. “It’s about teaching them how to live, serve and be the body of Christ.”

This year’s theme is “the body of Christ.” Last year’s was “Called to Be Saints,” according to James Flattery, a Davenport Diocesan seminarian who participated both years.

“This gives me the opportunity to learn more about youth ministry, so if I’m fortunate enough to complete seminary, I'll be better equipped to work with youth,” he said. “It can give me another tool in my tool belt to use, and to be able to meet youth on whatever road they’re on.”

Flattery is preparing for his second year at the Conception, Mo., Seminary.

The Just5Days camp also lets youth bond with others their age by working together and attending worship and prayer gatherings when they’re not at work.

“It’s nice to meet so many other people,” camper Melina Vieyra-Nava, 13, of Davenport, said.

She joined a team of volunteers to do odd jobs at St Joseph the Worker House, a transitional housing project for the needy in Rock Island.

She and colleagues Burrill, Gillian Marbury, 14, of Davenport, and a group of adult chaperones spent one of the five days “removing weeds from crumbling sidewalks and cracks” at the house, Marbury said.

Each day focused on a specific “Body of Christ” goal, and using their hands to help other people was the assigned mission on the day they spent weeding, Vieyra-Nava said, adding she also enjoyed time spent learning prayer methods.

Other projects included feeding the hungry at Cafe on Vine in Davenport; helping developmentally disabled people; doing prairie restoration; working with older adults and doing yard work, doing a low-ropes overhaul project, and landscaping, cleaning and painting projects. -- qconline.com