Send Us Your Ideas

Have you done something innovative or creative with your students or youth group? If so, help others who serve young people by letting them know how you foster our faith call to justice and solidarity. Each month, we will highlight the creative ideas, lessons, activities and use of resources of professionals and volunteers serving young people through education, youth and other ministries. Each month, submissions will be reviewed and innovative ideas will be featured in this section of the website.

Please complete the form to send us your ideas. Be sure to review this month’s featured youth worker and idea.

Tsunami Rebuilding Hope Banquet,
October 12, 2006

Nearly two years after a devastating tsunami struck Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia, Catholics in the Archdiocese of Atlanta came together to remember, to celebrate the wonderful diversity of our church, to pray, and to raise awareness of the continuing needs in Southeast Asia.

The event could not have happened without the active participation of the OLA youth group. The teens handed out fliers to promote the event at masses, woke up early Saturday morning to set up the parish hall for the big event and worked late into the evening serving traditional Indonesian Cuisine to the 120 guests present. A look around the room revealed true solidarity in action, youth serving and participating, Indonesian and American families celebrating and learning, and prayers and offerings flowing for our brothers and sisters still suffering from natural disasters in Southeast Asia.

• To develop a similar event at your parish or school, contact Simone Blanchard with CRS Southeast at 404-681-4600.

Solidarity through Simplicity

Sr. Sally Marie Bohnett from Notre Dame Academy in Toledo, Ohio asks her senior religion students to practice solidarity by living simply and keeping a living diary about their experience. Students choose a practice that challenges them to live simply for a consecutive 7-day stretch of time — not so hard that it's impossible, but not so easy that they don't "feel" it at all. Some practices students choose include: sleeping on the floor, taking cold showers, not buying fast food, taking 5 minutes a day to read something on peace and justice.

Students write a paragraph reflection each day on their progress or failure to live this practice. If it is hard, they explain why. They describe whether it is making any impact on them or not. They are not graded on their success or failure, but rather on the quality of their reflection and their own insights into simple living. Students are asked to put their reflections together in a small booklet; some even include illustrations.

Sr. Sally says that at the end of this "living simply" exercise, some students choose to continue their new way of living.