Weekend Campaigns served in a local children’s home in Medina, a small town just north of San Antonio.
Weekend Campaign leaders Jared Agee, junior vocal music education and piano performance major from Cedar Hill, and Bree Foster, junior psychology major from Red Oak, take students to various locations around Texas to help people who in need.
“Our first trip was our freshman year, and we actually went to Medina,” Agee said. “We painted, we played with kids and we helped the people who ran the place. It was a lot of fun, and I just got hooked.”
Agee said another pivotal part of creating the community is that they never have the same group go twice because there are almost always people coming and going.
“The randos just come out of the woodwork to go on weekend campaigns, and it’s so cool because you get to meet people you never would have met before, and you just travel in a car for three to four hours with them and get to know them,” Agee said.
Foster, who went on the same trip, said she had similar reasons for continuing to participate.
“I got involved my freshman year just by signing up for one campaign and falling in love with the beauty and community of it,” Foster said. “Then, at the end of the year, the leaders asked me to take over because they were all graduating.”
Last weekend, the group traveled to the same home two years later, and said they had the same feelings they felt years ago.
“We worked with children who have been taken away from their real families for a reason – drugs, physical abuse, sexual abuse,” Agee said. “These kids have crazy stories, but they love so well. Going on these campaigns helps me learn to love in a whole new way.”
Foster and Agee said they agree that this isn’t just a project; it’s an ongoing opportunity to serve the world outside of Abilene and connect to the human experience.
“Our main goal is to foster love and to create community,” Agee said. “We want the people that we work with to know that they always have someone willing to help them, even 10 to 20 years in the future, when the people who first came are no longer around Abilene. We want them to have the community of ACU with them for the rest of their time they’re at those places, wherever they may be.”
Weekend Campaigns is directed by Mary Beth Cuevas, associate director of Leadership Camps. A trip to Laredo is scheduled April 22-23. If you are interested in Weekend Campaigns, email weekendcampaigns@gmail.com.
