Press Release:

February 8, 2007

WALTHER STUDENTS PREPARE FOR MEXICO MISSION TRIP

Walther Lutheran High School is preparing to send a team of ten students and two faculty members on the school’s annual mission trip to Mexico. The trip is service oriented, which is a major focus of the ongoing community outreach by the Christian college preparatory school located in Melrose Park. “Our students are regularly involved in service to the local community and the world at large,” said Lori Solyom, the school’s public information officer. “We’ve helped clean up the neighborhood, raised money and collected food to stop hunger, bought Christmas gifts for needy kids, raised funds for hurricane relief and helped staff a local church’s community center,” she explained, adding that “the mission trip offers our students a chance to spend their spring break addressing needs of the very poor head on in a different cultural environment.”

This is the sixth year that Walther is sending a group to in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where they will work at Casa Hogar de los Angeles, a charitable daycare for children of single mothers who must work and have nowhere else to leave their children. The children are given meals, medical care and a safe environment in which to play and learn. In addition, the center provides resources for the mothers and helps them establish some form of financial independence.

Ms. Andrew Pederson, faculty chaperone on a past trip, described his experience, “The trip provided students (and teachers for that matter) an opportunity to get beyond themselves. It is easy to detach from need when all you have to do is change the channel, which is something you can't do when you are there face-to-face with those God has called you to serve. You can't turn off real life, and that's what the mission trip shows you.”

Esther Nickels, a senior from Cicero, Illinois, is one of the Walther students making the March journey. “I want to help out in a larger sense before I leave Walther,” she explained, “and I’ve never been on a mission trip before. Those students I know who have gone in previous years have told me that it’s fun and that it felt different, like they’d done something significant.”

The trip is open to any Walther student who exhibits a strong desire to serve others. Those who go on the mission trip are encouraged to use this experience in their lives after their return. Starting with this year’s freshman class, all Walther students are required to participate in a week long mission service trip prior to graduation. The San Miguel trip is one way students may fulfilling that requirement. For some participants, like Nickels, it will be the first time they have visited another country. “I’ve performed a lot of community service as a teenager,” she explained, but emphasized that she wants to “get out in the world.”

“San Miguel de Allende is a beautiful old city and a great tourist location, enthused Ms. Sue Costello, a Walther faculty member who accompanied the group last spring. “But,” she explained, “unlike many European and American tourist centers there is poverty everywhere. That juxtaposition of the very poor and fairly wealthy is really eye opening.” As her student volunteers played with children and helped make minor repairs at the center, Costello was impressed by the “the demeanor of the families involved at Casa Hogar de Los Angeles. They're all so active at the center and proud to be there.”

This year’s trip will be led by Mrs. Marcia Eberhard, teacher in Walther math and Spanish departments, and Ms. Emily Muther, Walther’s regional youth worker who partners with a number of area Lutheran churches.

Walther’s student body reflects a diverse community that comes from fifty-seven Chicago area zip codes. Walther Lutheran High School’s emphasis on quality education, rich extracurricular offerings and abundant service opportunities has brought the school’s students continued academic success. Walther graduates are counted as students and alumni at Big Ten and Ivy League schools, as well as institutions affiliated with nationwide church bodies and the Illinois state university system. For more information about Walther Lutheran High School visit Walther.com or call 708.344.0404.