Engaging Stories 2026
A transformative experience of faith, service, leadership, and community for high school students.
What is Engaging Stories?
Engaging Stories is more than a summer program. It is a journey of encounter, reflection, service, and mission for current high school students, rooted in Catholic faith and inspired by the call to missionary discipleship.
During this powerful week, teens are invited to discover their story in the light of God's love, encounter Christ in others, and grow as leaders rooted in faith, community, and hope. Through prayer, service, workshops, accompaniment, and friendship, participants begin a journey that continues long after the week in Miami ends.
This is a space where young people're seen, heard, challenged, and sent forth to connect their personal story with God's story and the needs of the world around them.
Program date:
July 12–18, 2026
Location:
St. Thomas University, Miami
Why Engaging Stories?
Young people are not only the future of the Church. They're the Church today. They're asking deep questions, carrying real stories, and searching for belonging, purpose, and concrete ways to make a difference.
Engaging Stories creates a space where faith comes alive and where young people can recognize that their lives, their voices, and their stories matter. Here they're invited to encounter Christ through service, discover their gifts, connect faith with daily life, and reflect on who they are as beloved sons and daughters of God.
During the week, participants will serve in the local community, pray and celebrate the liturgy together, build friendships with youth from across the country, and grow in leadership and responsibility. At the end of the program, each young person will take home a concrete plan to continue serving in their family, parish, school, and community.
Because Engaging Stories isn't only about one week: it's about forming young people who return home ready to lead with compassion, courage, and faith.
What Participants Will Experience
Engaging Stories is an integrated experience at St. Thomas University, Miami, where participants will live out faith through daily prayer, liturgy, and reflection; service through hands-on experiences that connect compassion with action; leadership with formation that helps youth grow in confidence, responsibility, and purpose; community in a joyful, welcoming environment where they will build friendships and learn from one another; and mission by returning home ready to live and share what they have experienced.
Participants take part in mandatory virtual gatherings to prepare spiritually, build community, and begin reflecting on the journey ahead.
Youth participate in a dynamic, immersive week of service, faith formation, prayer, leadership, and community life at St. Thomas University in Miami.
Participants continue in monthly virtual gatherings and carry out a service opportunity in their home community. This is how the experience becomes real, local, and lasting.
Así, la experiencia se vuelve real, local y duradera.
Who is this program for?
Engaging Stories is for high school students who are ready to grow, serve, and be challenged.
This program is especially meaningful for youth whowant to deepen their faith,care about their communities,are open to service and reflection,want to meet other young people from across the country,and are willing to participate fully before, during, and after the program.
You don't need to have everything figured out. You only need an open heart and the willingness to say yes to the journey.
What makes Engaging Stories unique is that it brings together faith, service, storytelling, culture, and mission in one integrated journey.
Participants don't simply attend sessions. They live the experience. They pray together, serve together, reflect together, and return home with a concrete commitment to keep walking.
This is formation that is personal, communal, and deeply rooted in the Gospel.
Program Details
Take the first step in a journey of faith, service, and transformation.
The program will take place at St. Thomas University, Miami, Florida, in an ideal university setting for learning, community life, and spiritual formation. The theme will be Pilgrims of Hope, and it will run from July 12 to 18, 2026, for high school students ages 15 to 18.
Cost:(xxx)
(Registration deadline: xxx)
Space is limited. Submitting a registration does not guarantee acceptance, so early registration is strongly encouraged.
Contact us
Fill out the form below to request information:
Contact us
General information
Julia Vazquez
