On Friday, Mar. 4, 500 students, team leaders and participating faculty will gather in the Chapel of St. Joseph – Michael J. Smith, S.J., Memorial on Saint Joseph’s University’s campus to celebrate the beginning of the University’s annual spring break Appalachian Experience. Each year a group of undergraduates and SJU community members travels to locations along the Appalachian mountain range, where they work with local organizations to support education, children’s and women’s advocacy initiatives, food pantries and Habitat for Humanity chapters. Exemplary of SJU’s tradition of volunteerism, the trip – an alternative to spending a week at home with nothing to do – has grown larger each year since its inception.

This year, steeped in 18-year tradition, the volunteers will gather for a brief service centered on Jesuit values at the Mar. 4 send-off ceremony. Following a welcome and discussion of the mission of the service trip, 27 th president-elect Fr. Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J., will give the blessing before the vans depart for the week. And unlike years past, this ceremony will include a motivational video created for SJU by a philanthropic celebrity: actress and pop musician Miley Cyrus.

Cyrus, a native of Tennessee, has been serving communities in Appalachia throughout her life, most notably the town of McKee, Ky., an area known for its widespread rural poverty. SJU connected with her social media volunteerism website, Get Ur Good On, which is a partner of the service organization Youth Serve America, a D.C. - based non-profit that encourages young Americans to give back to their communities. In support of the Appalachian Experience, Cyrus will be providing SJU’s 2011 trip with 15 digital cameras to document their service – one for each site – helping to fund fair-trade T-shirts for the volunteers, eventually showcasing their edited videos on the Get Ur Good On website and filming the motivational video set to be viewed at the send-off ceremony. Matt Fullmer, campus minister and facilitator for service immersion programs at SJU, says Cyrus’ involvement in the project adds to an already growing and successful service immersion experience.

“Every year there’s a real push from our student leaders to make the Appalachian Experience as widespread and engaging as possible, which is why we’ve seen such great increases in participants over the past few years,” he says. “Adding a celebrity like Miley Cyrus, who has a personal connection to the region we serve, is another way to get students excited and involved.”

This year, the Appalachian Experience has also added new destinations in Johnson City, Tenn., Clinchco, Va. and McKee, Wheelwright and Prestonsburg, Ky., allowing the SJU cohort to serve 15 sites in four states: Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. The volunteers are organized into service teams by Fullmer and each year’s student-coordinators, and assigned their service locations in a way that gives participants a new experience each time they serve.

By creating teams that balance class years, genders and service interests, the organizers produce an atmosphere of learning not only through service, but through diverse interaction. The experience of the trip leads many students to take part in the immersion every year that they attend SJU; some go on to serve with the Alumni Appalachia trip, an annual week of service that travels to Phelps, Ky., the first location visited by the undergraduate Appalachian Experience.

“The students that take part in the trip grow very close to the communities they serve,” says Fullmer. “Every story is unique, but they seem to fall in love with the place and the residents, and that’s why so many return each year.”

Jen Price ’11, a senior interdisciplinary health services major, is one of four student coordinators for the 2011 excursion. She is returning this year as a three-year veteran, making her one of the many students who return to Appalachia all four years of their college career. Her first year at SJU, she hesitantly submitted her application; as a senior, she never questioned her decision to go.

“As a freshman you know a few people from class, your hall or extracurricular activities, but many of those relationships don’t become deep-rooted friendships,” Price says. “This trip is a great opportunity for freshmen and upperclassmen to meet students they may never have met during their time at SJU. A typical Appalachia group has just about every representation on campus: Red Shirts, RAs, athletes, members of Greek societies - all Hawks.”

For Price, closing out her college experience with one last trip to Appalachia – this time serving in Hazard, Ky. – is the best way to end her time at SJU.

“The trip is only a week long, but the work we have done with members of the Appalachian communities has shown me the importance of prayer, education and advocacy,” she says. “It’s a program I truly believe in.”