Description: Find a charity walk in your community and create a young adult team from your parish to fundraise and walk in the event. Plan activities to build community and encourage spiritual growth as you prepare to participate in the charity walk.
Get Ready
- Prep Time: Two months before the charity walk (or longer depending on the distance of the walk).
- Volunteers Needed: You will need a leadership team of four to five volunteers. This team will be responsible for coordinating the walk team and lead-up events. It will be important to create specific roles for each team member to share the work.
- Supplies: No specific supplies are needed for the walk or training. It might be helpful to prepare snacks or a meal for the “Kick-off Event” and the “Getting into Spiritual Shape” event.
- Reserve the Space: You will need space for your “Kick-off Event” and the “Getting into Spiritual Shape” event. You will also need to map out where you will go for “Walking Practice” outdoors in your community.
- Ideal Group Size: Five – 50
- Who is this for? All young adults
- When is a good time for this? Everything is scheduled around the selected charity walk. Training walks are good before or after Mass when young adults might already be gathered together.
- Publicize the Program:
- This program can be promoted easily to young adults outside of your parish as an opportunity to get involved with the specific walk as a part of an organized team.
- In addition to your normal means of sharing news about events (bulletin, e-mail, website, etc.) use social media to allow your actively involved young adults to share the event with their friends outside of the parish.
Prayer for Program Planner: Dear God, may our time together be energized by your love for us, so that we can engage in doing your work. May this time we spend walking together energize our faith and serve our community. Amen.
Community Building: This program incorporates community building by encouraging the young adult community to train together. It also allows the young adults to engage in learning about and taking action on a specific issue facing the community.
Make It Happen
The Program has four components:
- A “Kick-off Event” where you talk about which walk you have chosen to join and why. It is helpful to get someone from the organization sponsoring the walk to come talk to the group. At this meeting, you can also decide on the fundraising goal for the group as well.
- Gather before or after Mass one to two times for a “Training Walk.” The number of times you need to train will depend on the distance of the charity walk.
- “Getting into Spiritual Shape” — Have an evening gathering with the group to talk about what it means to get into spiritual shape. A helpful article to start the conversation is this one: “Getting Back in Spiritual Shape.” You might consider inviting a speaker, or have someone from your own young adult community lead the discussion. See the Resources section for ideas for this evening event. Here’s an outline for the one and a half hour event:
- 15 minutes: Gather and eat a healthy meal together
- 10 minutes: Opening Prayer
- 30 minutes: Talk on Spiritual Fitness (From an organizer/volunteer or invite someone in advance to give a witness talk on times of spiritual endurance or practices of getting into spiritual shape)
- 15 minutes: Small Group Discussion (Turn to a neighbor or several people to discuss how you might want to get into better spiritual shape)
- Some ideas for questions: Do you feel in spiritual shape? Where are you in your progress toward spiritual shape? What helps you create spiritual routines? What are your hopes for this process of getting ready for the walk? How can you use this time to mindfully think about your relationship with God? Your relationship with others? Your relationship with the cause for which we are walking?
- 10 minutes: Large Group Discussion (Facilitate people sharing what talked about in their small groups)
- 10 minutes: Closing Prayer and socialize
- The Walk! Go as a group and complete your charity walk together.
Ideas
- Not everyone needs to commit to actually walking in the charity walk. To make it accessible to all, create an opportunity for people to also: volunteer, fundraise, and be prayer sponsors for specific walkers.
Help
- Here are some websites to find Charity Walks near you:
- Some resources for the “Getting into Spiritual Shape” evening:
- “Three ways to Get into Spiritual Shape this Lent”
- The Spiritual Exercises
- “Getting Back in Spiritual Shape”
- The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith (Loyola Press, 2004) by Tim Muldoon
- The Catholic Briefcase: Tools for Integrating Faith and Work (Ligouri, 2011) by Randy Hain
