Juan Diego Service Week 2026

By: Elizabeth Divis

Every year, 12th grade students at Juan Diego Catholic High School participate in the Senior Service Project or Juan Diego Senior Service Week (JDSSW). For a whole week, seniors participate in service opportunities in the community instead of classes. Every senior is assigned to a specific service location, and this year, three students spent the week with Youthlinc’s Real Life program. JDSSW 2026 took place over the week of January 26th-30th, and three Juan Diego High School seniors served with Real Life from 12pm-6pm every afternoon that week.

Youthlinc’s Real Life program partners with afterschool sites in Salt Lake County run through Promise South Salt Lake and Asian Association of Utah. These afterschool sites primarily benefit youth from refugee, immigrant, and low income families. Many of our volunteers are participants in Youthlinc’s Service Year program, but during the last week of January, three of our volunteers were students from Juan Diego Catholic High School.

Real Life provides supplemental curriculum lessons (life skills, art, STEM, service projects, field trips, and social and emotional learning lessons, just to name a few) at afterschool programs, but it’s more than just curriculum. Real Life’s mission is Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, and it’s not just a mission statement, it’s the heart behind everything we do. I chose to focus this year’s Service Week around empowering refugees and immigrants, so all of our service projects related to that purpose. Every day during JDSSW, our three wonderful Juan Diego volunteers Tristan, Angelica, and Vannesa came to the Youthlinc office, where we either worked on a service project or met before traveling to a service opportunity in the community, before heading to Hser Ner Moo Community Center to volunteer at their afterschool program (Hser Ner Moo’s afterschool program is run by Promise South Salt Lake). Each day had an intention and purpose behind it. Every service project or opportunity was directly connected to Real Life’s mission. 

For Monday, our service project was with Dolls of Hope, our intention was to be intentional about our service during that day and throughout the week, and the purpose was to connect with the start of the refugee journey in the United States. We started the week with Dolls of Hope because they give homemade dolls and stuffed bears to children in newly arrived refugee families. We sorted through fabrics and traced patterns so that the teddy bears that will be given to Dolls of Hope are as high quality as we can make them. After working on our service project, we headed to Hser Ner Moo where we met the kids and led them in a teambuilding activity. Hser Ner Moo’s afterschool program serves youth from Kindergarten through 5th grade and we specifically worked with the 3rd-5th graders during Service Week.

Tuesday was focused on the Walt Whitman quote: “Be curious, not judgemental.” Our service opportunity was volunteering at an English class at the Murray Deseret Industries through the English Skills Learning Center, where the seniors helped groups of students with vocabulary activities. Before heading to the class, Jessica Hercules from the English Skills Learning Center (ESLC) came to the Youthlinc office and gave a presentation where she provided some helpful context about the work the ESLC does. The students at their English classes are adult learners and many are refugees who are learning English for the first time. Something that stuck with us for the rest of the week that Jessica said was that she likes to think of America as a really good stew or soup, rather than a melting pot. We are all different and come from different places and bring different skills sets and experiences to our communities, and just like a really good soup, all of those different components combine to create something wonderful. It was lovely to have that thought with us as we continued our week of purposeful service. The mission statement of the ESLC is “The English Skills Learning Center integrates and strengthens communities by breaking language and cultural barriers.” That was definitely the experience that we had with them. We are all more alike than we think, we just have to be curious enough to push past barriers. The class was a big step outside of the comfort zone for our volunteers, so the intention of being curious instead of judgmental had a very direct connection to the experience. All three of the volunteers talked about how much they enjoyed volunteering at the class throughout the rest of the week. They had way more fun than they thought they would and got to meet people from all over the world. Afterwards, we headed to Hser Ner Moo for our Real Life activity. The kids at Hser Ner Moo love art projects, so we incorporated art into service by making kind and creative cards for their friends.

On Wednesday, our service project was directly connected to Real Life activities. Throughout the school year, Real Life partners with several different individuals and organizations to provide experiences for the youth at our afterschool sites that they might not have otherwise. One of our partners is Ruth Gledhill, a longtime friend to Youthlinc and lifelong artist, who leads art activities with the youth at our sites. Ruth came into the Youthlinc office and the volunteers helped her prep for her upcoming weaving activities. Some of those supplies have already been used at Real Life sites and some of them will be for other members of our community to use. Our focus for Wednesday was being part of a greater whole. Ruth explained to the seniors why she loves doing weaving projects in the community: weaving exists in every culture in the world and it ties us all together. Just like the different colors in a woven basket or tapestry don’t diminish each other, but create something more beautiful and interesting than one color on its own, every member of a community is unique and valuable and when we come together, our lives are far more interesting and special than they would be without each other. Wednesday’s Real Life activity at Hser Ner Moo was a big hit: an engineering activity where the kids had to work in teams to create roller coasters for marbles to successfully ride through. 

Thursday’s focus was taking initiative. We only had one week to serve together, so Thursday was a reminder to take advantage of that and jump in as much as possible. For Thursday’s service project, we completed a volunteer shift at Utah Food Bank. Utah Food Bank partners with afterschool programs to provide the necessary food for the daily Kids’ Cafe dinner service. It was a great way to give back to an organization that gives so much to the kids we work with everyday. It also connected to our mission statement of Empowering Refugees and Immigrants because food banks are a crucial resource for families in our community that come from refugee and immigrant backgrounds. Thursday’s Real Life activity was an art lesson led by Ruth Gledhill for all of the K-5th students. The students had created pottery with her the week before and she came in to teach them how to glaze their creations before the pottery went home with her to be finished in her kiln.

Friday was a day of reflection and fun. Instead of a service project at the office, the Juan Diego volunteers reflected on their experiences from the week and how they wanted to apply them going forward. The intention was to take your new perspectives home with you and the focus was to notice what things matter to you. We connected the messages from the week and discussed ways to get involved and serve the refugee community. We always have an impact whether we like it or not, but we get to choose whether it’s positive or negative. Friday was an early release school day, so we headed to Hser Ner Moo a little earlier than the other days and made the most of our last day together. We had a pizza party for dinner and made crafts and watched a movie.

Our week followed the experience of refugees in the Salt Lake area. We created stuffed animals for children in refugee families who will arrive in the U.S., helped out at an English class that provides opportunities for refugees to thrive in their community, served at the Utah Food Bank (which serves refugees in the community), and prepared art projects for kids in our programs that are specifically designed to empower refugees and immigrants. The week was good exposure for the students, but not just because it was something different, but because they were able to see firsthand that every individual life is valuable and meaningful. Our partners throughout the week reminded us that we are so much better when we work together and embrace our friends from around the world. In our welcome materials from the English Skills Learning Center, it said: “Our goal at the ESLC is to create a space where people feel safe, respected, and valued.” One of our main goals at Real Life is to contribute to the creation of safe spaces and places of belonging for youth who might not have that elsewhere. Everyone deserves to be loved and understood. 

We would like to thank Juan Diego Catholic High School, Dolls of Hope International, Ruth Gledhill, Jessica Hercules at the English Skills Learning Center and Audrey (our wonderful English teacher that day), the volunteer program staff at Utah Food Bank, Hay Soe (the other Real Life Associate Director) for sharing his story with the seniors at the beginning of the week and telling them that they matter, Utah Refugee Connection, and the staff and students at Hser Ner Moo Community Center for an impactful week that reminded us of why we do what we do at Real Life.