News Article


RSS Subscribe to Gonzaga University's News Service RSS Feed

Dateline: 3/4/2009

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE
Dale Goodwin, Director
Peter Tormey, Associate Director

114 Zags to Depart for Mission: Possible Service

SPOKANE, Wash. – In a annual rite of spring at Gonzaga University, 114 students, staff and faculty advisers are preparing to embark Saturday, March 7 for eight sites nationwide where they will spend their entire spring break serving others through Gonzaga’s Mission: Possible program.

Gonzaga’s 10th annual Mission: Possible entourage, sponsored by the University’s Center for Community Action and Service-Learning (CCASL), includes 102 GU students and 12 faculty and staff advisers. At a time when many college students will be relaxing poolside in warmer climates, these freshmen through seniors will travel to the following cities to lend a hand in a variety of projects important to the communities: St. Louis; Denver; Browning, Mont.; Tacoma and Neah Bay, Wash.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Jonestown, Miss.; and Portland, Ore.

A student helps out at a previous Mission: Possible outing in Knoxville, Tenn.
Mission: Posisble is in its 10th year of serving others.
After nine years of the program, there are now nearly 600 Gonzaga alumni who have experienced Mission: Possible. Students run the program, raise their own money for the trips, motivate others to become involved and provide plenty of enthusiasm and inspiration.

Student coordinators are Ian Roeber, Katie Shannon, Clare Van Brunt, Megan Rosenberger, Emma Ackels, Maggie Zaback, James Gross and Courtney Wick. The student volunteers and advisers will work on projects including housing rehabilitation, painting, home weatherization and other building repair initiatives. They also will perform service work at homeless shelters and soup kitchens, work in community gardens, help with children and assist in other projects important to communities in those cities.

The students have put in long hours since last spring planning and preparing for the trip, which lives out Gonzaga’s Mission Statement that calls for loving service of others. The money to support the program came from fund-raising events, letters of appeal, student contributions and some university funds.

All students leave campus on Saturday, March 7 and return to campus on March 14. The Browning group leaves by train at 2 a.m.; others have 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. flights; the Tacoma and Portland groups will depart in mini-vans at 9 a.m.

For more information, please contact Mary Frier, community outreach coordinator of CCASL, at (509) 313-5543; after March 6, call (509) 313-6824 for information.