Immersion Program

Archbishop Mitty’s immersion trip program is one of our school’s major strengths as students try to follow the example of Jesus when he reached out to the poor and marginalized in His society. The impact of these trips can be seen in the enthusiasm and dedication of the many students, faculty and staff who participate in them and then return with renewed hope and dedication in constructing a more just and equitable world. Participating on an immersion trip offers the opportunity to get to know fellow classmates and teachers in a new context and also provides a unique way to serve and learn outside of our own campus community. 

September Applications Fall Los Niños (San Diego, CA)

November Applications Dolores Mission (Los Angeles) Environmental Justice Seminar (Bay Area) Glenmary Farms (Appalachia) Sacred Heart Urban Plunge (San Jose) St. Anthony's (San Francisco) Spring Los Niños (San Diego, Mexico) Summer Los Niños (Tijuana, Mexico) Environmental Justice Seminar (Bay Area)

January Applications ECJ: California ECJ: El Salvador ECJ: India ECJ: Native America ECJ: South Africa

Applying for an Immersion: All immersion applications are all on-line and linked below for each trip.  Please note the application time frame- applications will not be accepted before or after the dates listed. Once you have submitted an application, a confirmation email will be sent to your account giving you further instructions. You can rank your preferences for each trip within that one application. There is no need to apply for each of those trips separately.

Cost:  The approximate cost of each trip is listed below. We do everything in our power to keep immersion trips as inexpensive as possible. There are occasions when prices may vary from advertised because of transportation and lodging. 

Financial Aid: Financial Aid: There is a limited amount of money available to help students attend immersion programs. If you are already receive financial aid for tuition, you can receive that same percentage for immersions (Exp. 25% tuition reduction = 25% immersion reduction). If you are on financial aid for tuition and would like to apply for aid for an immersion, please complete the Campus Ministry Financial Aid Request. If you are not on financial aid for tuition but feel like you are in need of aid for an immersion, please contact the business office to complete their financial aid evaluation form.

Immersion Information Night: If you wish to be a part of an immersion, please make every attempt to come to Immersion Night on Wednesday, November 11th at 6 p.m. in the chapel to learn of all your options. All immersions, including ECJ classes will be discussed.

For further information please contact Mr. Tim Wesmiller. The immersion trips for the 2008-2009 school year are the following:

Fall Los Niños (San Diego, CA)
50 Service Hours
October 14-18, 2009
Approximately $750
Faculty Reference Form (pdf)

The motto of this 5-day trip is “helping people help themselves.” The Los Niños program focuses on three types of learning: experiential (working in communities, seeing the border), cultural (visiting museums, playing fútbol rapido), and cognitive (listening to speakers, discussing immigration issues). The spiritual dimension of the trip involves journaling, prayer, and reflection, typically in the evenings, as the students process what they have experienced during the day. There are opportunities to speak Spanish, but it is not a requirement for participants or leaders.

Dolores Mission Parish (East Los Angeles, CA)
50 Service Hours
March 31-April 3, 2010
Approximately $350
Make a Payment for This Event
Apply For Immersion Trips

This immersion trip will take place during Holy Week and students will have the opportunity to explore the various ministries in which this dynamic parish is involved. The economic reality of the people in East Los Angeles makes Dolores Mission the poorest parish in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Students will be involved in celebrating the Holy Week liturgical celebrations, they will work with the elementary school students in Dolores Mission School, they will help prepare food and feed homeless immigrants who sleep in the parish church each night, and they will see how ex-gang members are rebuilding their lives through Fr. Greg Boyle’s work with Homeboy Industries. Students will share their reactions to the trip through a daily prayer and reflection session each evening.

Sacred Heart Urban Plunge (San Jose)
50 Service Hours
April 5-9, 2010
Approximately $350
Make a Payment for This Event

This 5-day trip is designed by Sacred Heart Community Services, in conjunction with other local social services, to experience homelessness in our own city.  Students will explore issues of poverty and how they can help build community and be in solidarity with those most marginalized.  The various activities include simulating homelessness by living simply, actively trying to receive services from various services agencies, neighborhood projects, working at volunteer agencies, and taking an environmental justice tour.  Students will be staying at a local parish for four evenings.

Spring Los Niños (Tecate, Mexico)
50 Service Hours
April 5-9, 2010
Approximately $750
Make a Payment for This Event

The motto of this 5-day trip is “helping people help themselves.” The Los Niños program focuses on three types of learning: experiential (working in communities, seeing the border), cultural (visiting museums, playing fútbol rapido), and cognitive (listening to speakers, discussing immigration issues). The spiritual dimension of the trip involves journaling, prayer, and reflection, typically in the evenings, as the students process what they have experienced during the day. There are opportunities to speak Spanish, but it is not a requirement for participants or leaders.

Glenmary Home Missioners (Appalachia)
50 Service Hours
May 30-June 5
Approximately $850
Make a Payment for This Event

For one week, students live in a rural setting with student groups from different parts of the country, as they work with the poor in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Service work includes building homes for the disadvantaged, visiting the elderly in retirement and convalescent homes, attending to the needs of adult day-care clients, and landscaping. This will be a time of service, education, prayer, reflection, recreation, community sharing, and immersion in the local Appalachian culture.

St. Anthony’s Foundation (San Francisco)
50 Service Hours
June 7-11, 2010
Approximately $350 
Make a Payment for This Event

This 5-day trip takes place in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. During the day, students serve meals in St. Anthony’s Dining Room, sort clothes, talk with seniors at the Senior Day Center, and deliver meals to homes. They are introduced to the full spectrum of services that St. Anthony’s provides to address the needs of the impoverished and homeless in the city. The group sleeps at the International Youth Hostel downtown. In the evenings, there is time for reflection, prayer, and discussion, as well as for exploring various neighborhoods in the city as a group.

Summer Los Niños (Tecate, Mexico)
50 Service Hours
May 31- June 4
Approximately $750
Make a Payment for This Event

The motto of this 5-day trip is “helping people help themselves.” The Los Niños program focuses on three types of learning: experiential (working in communities, seeing the border), cultural (visiting museums, playing fútbol rapido), and cognitive (listening to speakers, discussing immigration issues). The spiritual dimension of the trip involves journaling, prayer, and reflection, typically in the evenings, as the students process what they have experienced during the day. There are opportunities to speak Spanish, but it is not a requirement for participants or leaders.

Environmental Justice Seminar (Bay Area)
50 Service Hours
June 1-5, 2010
Approximately $350
Make a Payment for This Event

This 5 day immersion is a combination of short seminars starting at a camp site in either Santa Cruz or Monterey Bay with day long activities that provide experiential learning in the area of environmental justice. We will explore where our food comes from while visiting local farms and ranches. We will also look at what various bay area organizations are doing to promote issues of alternate energy, recycling, and clean technology. The emphasis will be to harvest and eat all organic, locally grown food throughout the week.

Ethics, Culture and Justice (El Salvador)
*Student are currently enrolled.
75 Service Hours
June 8-19, 2010
Approximately $1500
Online Applications
Faculty Recommendation (pdf)

Make Payment for the 2009-20010 Trip

After focusing on El Salvador for a year in their Junior Ethics Course, students live with families in a small village for the first week of this two-week trip. (Adult leaders stay in a simple hotel.) Students live, work, share ideas, reflect, and play sports with a youth group called the Tamarindos. During the second week, the group stays in San Salvador as they visit such culturally significant sites as Archbishop Romero’s house, the cathedral where he is buried, the University of Central America where the Jesuit priests were murdered, and the shops of local artisans. Each day devotes time to prayer services and reflections planned by the students, in which they share what they have experienced and what they are processing.

Ethics, Culture and Justice (South Africa)
*Student are currently enrolled.
75 Service Hours
May 30-June 14, 2010
Approximately $3500
Online Applications
Faculty Recommendation (pdf)

Make Payment for the 2009-20010 Trip

Twenty-five juniors will spend the school year in an ethics course that will focus on the history and experience of the transformation of South Africa. Students will study the unjust structure of apartheid and its dismantling. Particular attention will be given to the role of the Christian faith in the struggle for freedom and justice. The course culminates with a trip in June inclusive of one week in Johannesburg and one week in Cape Town. The Mitty group will work and share perspectives with high school students in each city. Highlights of the trip will include a visit to Robben Island Prison, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and time in Soweto. Students will also visit numerous sites that commemorate the struggle for freedom, including the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, and the District Six Museum in Cape Town. Students will be a part of discussions with citizens who lived through the apartheid era and participated in the process of healing and forgiveness. Group prayer and reflection will be a daily part of the experience.

Ethics, Culture and Justice (California) 
*Student are currently enrolled.
75 Service Hours
June 1-10, 2010
Approximately $850
Online Applications
Faculty Recommendation (pdf)

Make Payment for the 2009-20010 Trip

Following the same sequence and unit themes of other Jr. Ethics classes, this course will focus on the moral challenges that face young adults and social justice issues that are particular to California. Students will discover that morality is more than just following the dictates of their parents and institutions concerning right and wrong. They begin to discover and develop for themselves a sense of conscience that will guide them throughout adulthood. Throughout this course, the student explores the components of moral decision-making and is encouraged to form a personal conscience rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition. Students will be challenged to reflect, analyze, synthesize and apply the principles learned in this course to personal and social issues. This course places special emphasis on the study of social justice issues and the major tenets of Catholic social teaching, particularly through studying the history and recent experience of Californians. The course will culminate in an eleven-day immersion experience to different locations in California such as St. Anthony’s Foundation in San Francisco, Save the Bay in San Jose, a migrant farm-working community in Salinas, and Dolores Mission in L.A

Ethics, Culture and Justice (India)
*Student are currently enrolled.
75 Service Hours
July 20-August 5
Approximately $3500
Online Applications
Faculty Recommendation (pdf)

Make Payment for the 2009-20010 Trip

Through this junior ethics class students will be able to demonstrate an awareness of India’s rich history that will illuminate many of India’s contemporary issues. Students will focus on key social justice issues such as rural/urban poverty and the struggle over equitable development. We will also examine the role of globalization in regards to India being a key player in outsourcing centers of multinational corporations, developing technologies, and manufacturing inexpensive goods. Other objectives of the class are to study the complex and evolving role of women in religion, family, and society. The class will also examine the efforts of various religions to coexist and dialogue despite the immergence of fundamentalist and secularist movements. Finally, we will research Gandhi’s non-violent resistance movement and how it is still being lived out today in the face of nuclear build-up and terrorism. The class will culminate in a two-week trip to the cities of Delhi, Agra, Bangalore, and Mysore. Some highlights include visiting temples, Call centers, orphanages, the Taj Mahal, and hear from experts in several fields of study.

Ethics, Culture and Justice (Native American)
*Student are currently enrolled.
75 Service Hours
June 1-10, 2010
Approximately $1100
Online Applications
Faculty Recommendation (pdf)

Make Payment for the 2009-20010 Trip

Through this junior ethics class, students will be able to demonstrate an awareness of key ethical issues related to the cultural treatment of Native American peoples and individuals, the nature and extent of tribal sovereignty, and the issues of racism, classicism, and sexism involved in the long history of policy towards Native Americans. The class will also explore key social justice themes, unique cultural differences between tribes, and inter-religious dialogue between Native Spirituality and Catholicism. This class will culminate in a two-week immersion includes a visit to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, several days working on the Navajo Reservation in Tuba City, a visit to Canyon de Chelly, the Chaco Canyon, and the White Mountain Apache Reservation to experience a Sunrise ceremony and Sweat Lodge. The trip will also include visits to Catholic churches to see how inculturation is implemented on reservations.