By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
Catholics in Action (CIA) is moving south for the summer.
Traditionally, the weekend-long service event for high school-aged youths has taken place in the Iowa City area, but this year, participants will work in and around the Fort Madison area.
Bishop Martin Amos and Gillian Marbury of St. Alphonsus Parish in Davenport make beehives in the Iowa City area during Catholics in Action last year.
For CIA’s 19th year, the diocesan Faith Formation office decided to open up the project to other locations in part because donations for the project come from all over the diocese. Don Boucher, director of the Office of Faith Formation and coordinator of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, offered parish youth groups and youth ministers an opportunity to make a case for hosting CIA.
A group of teens from parishes in the Fort Madison area — Elizabeth and Joshua Barr, Maggie Baker, Abby Boeding, Joseph Hummel, Eryn Anderson and Conrad Hellman — put together the winning presentation, which included ideas for 17 possible work sites.
“These seven kids … wanted to make a difference in their community,” said Mike Linnenbrink, youth minister of parishes in West Point, Houghton, St. Paul, Fort Madison and Farmington. The hope moving forward is that CIA will continue to travel to different parts of the diocese, he said.
This year’s CIA will take place June 26-28, with Holy Trinity Junior/Senior High School serving as home base. The cost to participate is $45/person by May 27, or $50 between May 28 and June 15. Participation is limited to 80 individuals. Youths should fill out a registration form and hand it to their parish youth minister or Director of Religious Education (DRE) before the deadlines.
Registration for CIA is done by parish teams of three to five youths and one to two adult leaders. Resources for youth ministers can be found at http://bit.ly/233FZGo. Youth ministers/DREs can call Barb Butterworth in the diocesan Faith Formation office with questions at (563) 888-4240 or email her at butterworthb@davenportdiocese.org.
An additional CIA program, CIA Family Style, is launching this year to give families an opportunity to perform service work together. That event will take place July 7-10 in Muscatine; more details will be released in a future issue of The Catholic Messenger.
