For young people, summer brings family vacations, athletics camps, and summer school – and it’s also a time for deepening faith, including vacation bible school, mission trips, and, at Saint Viator High School, Service & Song.
the group shot from Service & Song 2025 last June
Service & Song is a long-running camp hosted at the high school for middle school students. The five days are grounded in communal prayer, built around service activities on campus and out in the community and at service organizations, and oriented toward service-learning.
High school students lead the small groups and activities, and Viatorians and adult helpers support the program, with Associate Ann Perez, the school’s Vice President for Mission and Identity, at the helm. Ann shares in greater depth about this program in Episode 113 of Viatorian Voices.
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“The purpose of Service & Song is to help our high school students and our middle school students understand the mission of the Viatorians – to proclaim Jesus Christ and raise communities where faith is lived, deepened, and celebrated,” Ann said. “So, we try to do all those things within a week, in a few hours each day, and welcome middle school students to our community in this very specific way.”
a few highlights from 2025
Locally, Saint Viator High School strives to live out this mission through the particular community life of the school. Service & Song is a way for adults and students to put this in action and begin to share it with middle school students who will hopefully join them in the coming years. “Our mission and vision at Saint Viator High School is to help students discern who God wants them to be, to discover what the world needs, and then transform the communities around them – either right here at Saint Viator or out at all the service sites,” Ann said.
Read these archival stories on Service & Song from 2025, 2024, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2013.
The service activities include a food drive in the school’s neighborhood, a full-group service visit to Feed My Starving Children, and partnerships with Salute, Inc. for veterans, Laudato Si’ gardens at parishes, and Journeys: The Road Home for people experiencing homelessness. Ann hopes this Viatorian formation furthers students’ sense of vocation. “When we talk about the corporal works of mercy, the themes of Catholic Social Teaching, and lives of the saints [over the three-year rotation], in just one week, it all tries to incorporate a whole life of mission,” Ann said. “Hopefully, it will then be continued after – long after!”
Service & Song 2026 takes place June 22-26. Catch all of Episode 113 on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.