Immersions and Camps

2025 Immersion Application 

The Immersion application for the Summer of 2025 opens on November 8. The Application Deadline is Friday, November 15.

2025 Experiences

Financial aid is available for students currently receiving tuition assistance. If cost is the only factor preventing participation in immersion, please contact the Office of Service and Justice to have a conversation. We want all interested, qualified students to be able to participate in this program.  

The locations are as follows:

Sierra Service Project – Del Norte County, CA

Students work with residents and organizations in the coastal towns of Smith River, Fort Dick, and Crescent City as well as, at times, inland in Hiouchi and Gasquet. Because Del Norte County’s poverty rate is more than 20 percent and is one of the poorest counties in the State, we work with the entire community, including some families who are tribal members. Most of our work is locally led in partnership with community-based organizations, although some projects will focus on typical SSP home repairs. Volunteers will rotate through community-based projects, many of which have an environmental focus. Cost: $1100

L’Arche Tahoma Hope – Tacoma, WA

We will partner with the L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community, spending time working alongside core community members with intellectual disabilities on the community farm, learning about disability justice and socializing with the members of the community. Housing is provided on-site. Cost: $1150

Darst Center for Peace & Justice – Chicago, IL

The Br. David Darst Center provides transformative social justice immersion experiences grounded in the Lasallian tradition and Catholic Social Teaching.  Through the programs and partnerships with local community organizations, participants gain a deeper understanding of the complex realities of injustice and obtain tools to take action. They seek to inspire an active and engaged faith, a commitment to serve, and a passion for social change. Cost: $1700

Kino Border Initiative – Nogales, AZ and Sonora, Mexico

This Jesuit apostolate works to provide humanitarian aid to recently deported migrants, advocate for policy change (in the U.S., Mexico, and beyond) that impacts migration, and educate about the complexities of immigration. Students provide service through meal service and accompaniment of migrants through conversation. Students also meet with ranchers, border patrol officers, and participants in the court system (attorneys, judges) for dialogue with people impacted by migration and for reflection on their experience and response. Cost: $1750

Jerusalem Farm – Kansas City, MO

We will be living simply and giving our time and energy to help others, primarily with home maintenance and repair, so that they may have adequate shelter and avoid code violations. The Jerusalem Farm community, which provides our housing, is led by an alumnus of Jesuit High School. Cost: $1800

Courts for Kids - Panama

With the mission of “transforming lives through building courts and cultural exchange,” each project is unique. Help build a court with a unique community with its history, strengths, and needs partnering with a distinctive group of volunteers who live, work, and engage in cultural activities with the community for one week. Cost: $2900

Camp ReCreation – Eagle Lake, CA

Volunteers spend the week working in a 1-to-1 ratio with a camper with a developmental disability. Camp ReCreation is staffed entirely by volunteers who generously share their time, energy, and talents to provide experiences and memories for our friends who are too often marginalized by their communities. Cost: $200 

What is an Immersion?

Our service immersion program offers rising Seniors an opportunity to put their faith into action in a particular way. The service experiences are about responding to the Gospel call to serve those in need, while questioning the reasons behind why people are in need. Service is a tool for creating spaces for kinship and solidarity. While each immersion has its own unique focus, they all encourage participants to live in solidarity with people experiencing acute needs like hunger, homelessness, physical or developmental disability, isolation due to old age or illness, or dislocation due to migration. Experiencing community, simplicity, justice, and prayer is central to the immersion experience.

Each immersion has goals which are modeled on tenets of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps program:

1. Engaging in direct service with the people of the community that welcomes us;
2. Living simply, while in community with fellow students and people of the host community;
3. Reflecting on social justice and Catholic Social Teaching issues pertinent to the community we are visiting;
4. Reflecting through prayer at the end of each day as a means of noticing where and how God was acting throughout the day, and, further, how God invites us to respond.