Strake Jesuit Juniors Take Mission Trip to Eagle Pass

Over Spring Break, a group of eight Strake Jesuit juniors traveled to the Texas border town of Eagle Pass to participate in the school’s annual community service project. While this is a special tradition for the school, this marked the first time it had taken place since 2019, due to pandemic-related issues in 2020 and 2021. The Strake Jesuit juniors were joined by eight seniors from another Houston Catholic school, Cristo Rey Jesuit. The mission trip included a variety of manual labor, with the goal of helping those who are in need by repairing their homes.

There were four projects that were completed during the trip: roofing, siding, painting, and flooring. The roofing project took the entire week and was challenging because it required precision and attention to detail in the Texas heat. Similarly, siding was difficult, but it was a smaller scale project so it was completed within a few days. Flooring was completed in one day and was the simplest project. Also, painting took the whole week because there were multiple houses that had to be painted.

Every homeowner that the students served shared a story with the students about a hardship in their life that they are overcoming and why this assistance means so much to them. One of the main takeaways from their stories is that the students’ help is a blessing during these hard times. This made the experience much more personal because students were able to see the people’s joy from the work that was done. 

Strake Jesuit junior Nicholas Bradshaw said, “Helping these families by repairing their homes was rewarding and satisfying. Strake Jesuit stresses the importance of sharing your talents and giving back to the community, so much so that they have a community service commitment for all students with a 100-hour requirement for seniors.”

Another part of the trip was students serving at a migrant center. Every day during the trip, four of the students were selected to help there, doing work such as cooking, sorting clothes, or even entertaining the children of the migrants. This work proved to be a challenge because none of the migrants spoke English, but every one of them were clearly thankful and trying to make the best of their situation.

While the manual labor was the main focus of the trip, there was also an emphasis on growing spiritually. The students began every day by going to mass and finished every day with a reflection led by one of the five leaders. These reflections were usually an hour long and they gave students an opportunity to review their day’s work and how it relates to their faith and community. The faith element of the community service trip deepened the overall experience for the students.