2012 National Youth Gathering
July 18 - 22, 2012
New Orleans, Louisiana
This trip is for youth who are currently in grades 7 through 11 in the 2010-2011 school year.
The National Youth Gathering is put together every 3 years by the ELCA and the location changes each gathering. In 2009, over 32,000 Lutheran youth from all over the country met for one week in New Orleans. The youth stayed in local hotels, ate in local restaurants, and gathered daily in the Superdome for worship, singing, guest speakers, guest musicians, fellowship, and FUN! While not in the Superdome, the youth can sign up for service projects around the city. In 2009, most of the focus was on helping to clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans is still hurting from the aftermath of the hurricane and is welcoming the National Youth Gathering back into their city in 2012.
We here at Hope would like to take some of our youth to New Orleans. There is no limit to the number we can take, we just need to plan ahead and stay organized. The youth gatherings are life changing experiences that you are sure to enjoy! We will fly down, stay in a hotel, do service projects and attend gathering events together.
We have estimated the cost of the trip to be about $1,000 - $1,100 per person and are hoping to raise most of this money through various fundraisers throughout the year. However, we only have a year and a half to do it so we have to start ASAP! The estimated cost would include airfare, hotel, meals, and registration fees. The only thing it would not include are souvenirs.
In order to begin planning and start raising money, we need to know how many youth are going to attend. We know this is far in advance, but plans have to be made early to accommodate 32,000 people in one city. The only way to secure your spot is to pay a nonrefundable $100 registration fee. We need to know if you plan to attend by Sunday, March 27th 2010, so your money is due on (or anytime before) this date to Wayne Weidner, Steph Ziegler, or Stacey Ziegler. If we do enough fundraising, this may be the only money you will need to contribute to the trip.
Many parents have expressed interest in attending the trip as well. Unfortunately, we cannot take everyone along with us. We will not know how many additional chaperones we need until we know how many youth will be attending. Once we have the number of youth attending, we will notify parents if extra chaperones are needed.
This is the first of many steps along the way to a very exciting journey!! We are very very excited to be organizing this trip and are really looking forward to it. We hope you consider joining us on this trip to New Orleans. You will make new friends, become closer to your current friends, and expand upon your own Christian faith.
The ELCA has a website for the youth gathering that you can read for additional information.