Forty-two members of the incoming freshmen class are gearing up for our 17th annual Community Connections week. This year Community Connections will take place from Saturday, August 18, to Friday, August 24. Community Connections is a service-immersion program designed to reinforce Sacred Heart’s commitment to developing leaders and community volunteers. The freshmen will be joined by 14 upperclass student leaders and several members of the faculty and staff.
During the week, the students will live at Golden Hill United Methodist Church and St. Charles Urban Center. They will participate in a variety of service projects, including Habitat for Humanity, Merton Center feeding program/St. Stephen’s Food Pantry/Merton Family Center, Daughters of Charity, Groundwork Bridgeport, Bridgeport Rescue Mission and the Kennedy Center. They will also participate in immersion activities designed to help them get to know the culture and social climate of Bridgeport. Those activities will include a Spanish mass, a Bridgeport Bluefish game, a Puerto Rican dinner with a group of Habitat families, salsa dancing, a Taize service, dinner at Captain’s Cove and more.
The participants in the program come away with lifelong memories and friendships as well as the kind of commitment to service that we hope to instill in all our students. I wish them a rewarding and fun week in the Bridgeport community.
For those of you who did not get a chance to see our Horizons Program students on campus during the summer, our own Tracy Deer-Mirek has put together a wonderful slide show that captures the learning, fun and enthusiasm that went on here. Take a look.