St. Mary's community work box Oxford community members will be given the opportunity to have more than a little help around the house April 9 and April 16.
A group of St. Mary's Catholic Church members will be making themselves available to anyone who calls within the next two weeks to have chores done at their home, according to the church's Director of Campus Ministry Kimberly Wagner.
"Often times we wash windows, rake leaves and do some garden work," Wagner said. "We weed a lot of flower beds."
The group of 15 volunteers, including 14 Miami University students, will be doing such work in order to raise money for various Ecuadorian villages, Wagner said.
"At this point, we have already raised enough money for the 15 applicants' traveling expenses," Wagner said. "All of the proceeds from the chore services will go directly to the Ecuadorian communities and their needs."
As a part of their mission trip, these students will be traveling to Ecuador to discuss their religious belief while contributing manual labor where it is needed.
"We do not know exactly what they will be having us work on just yet but I imagine we will be performing small construction jobs for the villages we visit," Wagner said.
Although mission trips are taken annually, this year's applicant pool was much greater than prior years.
"Usually we have about 14 or 15 people apply to go on these trips," Wagner said. "This year we had 36 applications."
Miami sophomore Kate Rapnicki was selected to go on the trip.
"We have been meeting since January and we just had our orientation last week to discuss how we are going to help the people in these villages," Rapnicki said. "I think it is going to be a really fulfilling experience that we will never forget."
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