BCU Students Spend Spring Break on a Mission

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Seven Briar Cliff University students spent their Spring Break mentoring high school students, assisting senior citizens and tutoring elementary school students while on a mission trip to Morton, Miss., located 30 miles east of Jackson, the state capitol.

Traveling on the mission trip were Briar Cliff students Kielan Dittmar, Gretna, Neb.; Jeremy Schindler, Hinton, Iowa; Tierra Hodges and Nancy Tatou, both of Sioux City; John Martinez, Pueblo, Col.; Richard Miller II and Sherin Parambaloth, both of Chicago, Ill.

“We worked one-on-one with students who are struggling in various academic areas,” said Sister Janet May, OSF, director of campus ministry at Briar Cliff, who led students in their mission experience. “We also assisted at the EXCEL Learning Center, which offers after-school and outreach programs for those living in poverty.”

The Sisters of Saint Francis of Dubuque, Iowa, the founding group of Briar Cliff, established the EXCEL Learning Center in Morton more than 10 years ago.

As a part of their mission experience, students toured the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn., where they learned about racism and prejudice.  The trip was Briar Cliff’s sixth mission trip to Mississippi since 2004. For more information about BCU’s Campus Ministry mission trip to Honduras in November, contact Sister Janet May at Briar Cliff.

Briar Cliff University is a Catholic institution with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students from 24 states and four countries.  Students are educated in the Franciscan tradition of excellence in the liberal arts and career preparation in an environment of care and compassion. For more information, please visit briarcliff.edu.

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