Every summer, a group of St. Edward’s youth trades a week of ordinary teenage life, phones, air conditioning, their own beds, for something far less comfortable and far more formative. This year was no different.
Twelve youth from St. Edward’s Episcopal Church in Mount Dora, along with three adult leaders, traveled to Satellite Beach in July to take part in Summer Local Mission, an annual weeklong mission trip that brings youth groups from across the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida together to serve a host community. St. Edward’s was represented by myself (Rev. Dan King), along with vestry member and volunteer youth leader Mike Viel, and volunteer adult leader Madeline Lafler.
Jubilee H. is all smiles while pulling weeds.
The event, formerly known as Soul in the City, rotates to a different host church each year, giving participating youth a new community and a new set of needs to serve every summer. St. Edward’s knows this rhythm well. Three years ago, our own church hosted the event, welcoming youth groups from across the diocese into Mount Dora. This year, it was our turn to be the ones showing up in someone else’s community.
Throughout the week, youth rotated through a wide range of service projects rather than staying with one task the whole time. Our group spread out across nearly every project offered: church grounds work, cleaning and organizing at a local homeless outreach ministry, prayer ministry among Satellite Beach’s homeless population, beach cleanup, and time spent with residents at a local assisted living facility. Some of our students crossed paths with four or five different projects over the course of the week.
What stood out most, as it does every year, was how our kids showed up for the work. Whether the task was raking gravel, cleaning facilities for the homeless, or simply sitting and talking with someone in assisted living, our youth stepped up without complaint and did it with genuine joy.
Trinity V. and Zakai M. working on stocking supplies for a local homeless ministry.
Trinity V., a St. Edward’s student entering her junior year, saw that spirit play out in small, practical ways. Early in the week, her group helped mulch the grounds at the host church. “He seemed so grateful for all of our help,” she said of the man they assisted, “and it felt like we truly were able to be a blessing that day by doing something as simple as laying mulch.” Later, while restocking a store at Matthew’s Hope, a local homeless outreach ministry, Trinity and her group worked alongside a woman who was new to the job. “The work we did in those couple hours made her not have to touch the store for a week,” Trinity said. “I feel like that truly showed how just a little bit of dedicated work can make someone’s life easier, even if it is only temporary.” Looking back on the week as a whole, she kept returning to one idea. “The idea of doing ‘a lot with a little’ really stuck with me,” she said. “With few skills and nothing special, we served and blessed so many people.”
For Taryn G., also entering her junior year, the week’s most lasting moment came in a quiet conversation at the assisted living facility. She sat with a woman there whose name she doesn’t remember, but whose words she hasn’t forgotten. “People tell you to live with no regrets, and you don’t realize how much it really means until you end up here,” the woman told her. “It really got me thinking about how short life is,” Taryn said. “I usually see those moments in TV shows and don’t think anything of it, but it happened to me in real life.”
Moments like these are exactly why St. Edward’s keeps sending youth on this trip year after year. It’s one of the most formative things our young people do all year, a real chance to live out the promises of our Baptismal Covenant, to seek and serve Christ in every person and to respect the dignity of every human being, not as an abstract idea but as a lived experience. And it’s clearly resonating. Each year, more of our students choose to go.
Next summer, Summer Local Mission will rotate to a new host church somewhere else in the diocese. Wherever it lands, St. Edward’s plans to be there, ready to serve again.
