Registration for this summer’s four weeks of Love Begins Here is open through April 30. The one-week local mission trips allow teens serve their neighbors in a variety of tasks. (File photo)
Students in middle school and high school looking to participate in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s fourth summer of Love Begins Here still have time to register.
Love Begins Here is a series of one-week local mission trips where students serve their neighbor in whatever capacity they are able to.
Registration for this summer will close April 30. Teens should be in contact with their youth minister to sign up. There are a limited number of free-agent spots for teens whose parishes are not attending as a group. Students wishing to claim one of those spots can contact Meg Aspinwall (aspinwallm@archmil.org), Associate Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for Youth for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, for the registration link.
Some of the projects the students do during their week with Love Begins Here include weeding, cleaning windows, cleaning a car, rearranging a garage, simple tasks around the house, or even just being present with an elderly person who needs the ministry of presence.
Aspinwall said based on requests from parishes, this summer’s four weeks of mission trips should involve more than 200 teens, easily topping the best number from the previous three years.
“I think there is some name recognition,” Aspinwall said. “We have some first-time parishes joining us for mission this summer, which is very exciting.”
Two new parishes will host the first two weeks of Love Begins Here this summer — Lumen Christi in Mequon from June 17-20 and St. Anthony on the Lake in Pewaukee from June 24-27. Those two weeks are for middle school students, along with July 8-11 at St. Elizabeth in Kenosha. The lone high school week will be July 14-19 at St. Charles in Burlington.
One change for this year is the middle school weeks will run from Monday through Thursday, as opposed to Sunday through Wednesday, as they had in the past.
Aspinwall’s office also hopes to bring Totus Tuus back to the archdiocese starting this summer.
Totus Tuus is a summer Catholic youth program dedicated to sharing the Gospel and promoting the Catholic faith through evangelization, catechesis, Christian witness and Eucharistic worship. It is a week-long parish summer catechetical program that assists parents and parishes in the evangelizing and catechizing of their youth by supplementing the work they are currently doing.
Aspinwall is hoping to form a team of two men and two women to lead the program this summer.
Students interested in participating in Totus Tuus this summer should contact one of the host parishes listed at https://www.archmil.org/totustuus.
