San Antonio Week-Long Program
This
information is provided to help your group plan for the DOOR-Denver
experience. It provides background on the DOOR program, specifics on
who can participate, registration procedures, schedules,
cost, open house weekends, transportation, insurance, and other logistics.
If you are considering a trip, please contact
the City Director of your preferred city or our National Office, Christie Sears or 303-295-3667.
Who Can Participate?
The
week-long DOOR program is designed for participants from high-school
age and beyond and is open to all denominations. DOOR asks that one
adult sponsor accompany every five youth who make up the group. For a
week-long experience, DOOR-San Antonio can accommodate groups up to 75
total participants (youth and sponsors.) Smaller groups may be paired
with other small groups, a practice that allows participants from
different places and denominations to share in service.
What Will You Do?
A
typical DOOR-San Antonio week begins on arrival Sunday evening after
supper and ends with departure after lunch the following Friday.
A two-hour orientation/logistics session Sunday evening helps
prepare everyone for the week. Your group will be divided into work
teams, (4-6 participants with one adult sponsor as designated leader)
that are also your meal teams. Meal teams are responsible for preparing
and cleaning up after all meals eaten together by the group. Groceries,
menus, and cooking instructions are provided and a DOOR staff person is
on hand for reference.
Once assigned to work and
meal teams, participants generally stay with those same teams for the
week. Work teams usually spend each day at a different service
assignment. However, due to the nature of some assignments, there are
cases where we will ask the same work team to stay at a site for more
than one day. Our goal is that all participants will have a variety of
experiences that they can then share with each other.
Examples of service assignments are preparing and serving meals at a
soup kitchen; helping with children whose moms may be looking for a
job, in school, or living on the streets; lawn and building maintenance
for individuals, seniors and/or for organizations that temporarily
house homeless families; stocking shelves in food banks; sorting
donated clothing; taking a tour of a homeless shelter; meeting with and
listening to groups that are working for change in the city; conversing
and singing with senior citizens.
What Will The Schedule Be Like?
Evening sessions include worship,
presentations, and group reflection. Thursday evening is set aside for
a time together to help participants reflect on and process what they
have seen, felt, and learned during the course of each day. This is
perhaps the most important time of the week. Issues raised are
addressed in light of our calling as Christians to love others and to
respond to those in need. On Wednesday evening a formal reflection time
is not scheduled. DOOR does not provide supper on this evening so most
groups choose to eat out and spend the evening seeing more of San
Antonio. (Please keep in mind that some work teams may not finish their
assignments until early evening.)
Cost and Registration for the San Antonio Week Long Program
Participant cost for 2009 is $295.
This covers food, lodging, materials for service experiences,
and program administration. Our registration process has several stages:
- Registration: Return
the group application and $75 per person
registration fee. This deposit will be applied, in its entirety, toward
your total group cost and will hold your requested date.
- Deposit:
- For groups coming in the spring, between February 1 and May 31: $100 per person deposit is due on January 15.
- For
groups coming in the summer, between June 1 and August 31: $100 per
person deposit is due on March 1 (groups smaller than 40).
If your group is larger than 40 people and you sign up before January 1, 2008, your $100 deposit is due February 1, 2009.
- For groups coming between September 1 and January 31: $100 deposit is due 10 weeks prior to your trip.
This deposit is per person.
This means that if you deposit for 10 people and only bring nine, you
lose the deposit for that one person. You may increase your numbers, if space is available,
with a telephone call to us. Again this deposit is non-refundable. Upon
receipt of this deposit, we will send you an orientation package,
including a statement of funds received and balance due upon arrival.
The orientation packet is intended to prepare your group for the DOOR
experience, and we strongly recommend you take the time to go over it
with your whole group.
- Balance is due 3 weeks before arrival.
- All funds received must be in U.S. currency.
- For groups registering after Mar 1, please contact the Christie in the National Office for deposit schedule.
Start the registration process for your trip by filling out our Online Registration (Fill out, print and send in with deposit), or if you prefer, filling out a PDF version of the Registration (Print, fill out, and send in with your deposit.)
Open House Weekends
The purpose of the leader's open house weekend is to help you prepare
your group to come to DOOR. Over the weekend you’ll be able to stay in
the facility, tour the city and some of the partner sites, as well as
meet other leaders. In many weekends we discuss culture, service,
conflict management, team building, preparing your group for your trip
and reentry- as time allows. Groups that go on short-term mission trips
trained and well-prepared accomplish more, understand their experiences
more deeply, and enjoy their trip more. The learning becomes
life-changing and lasting.
We invite one leader from each
group to attend the open house weekend, but others may come along for
only $50 per person. For more information about the open house
weekends, visit our Open House page.
What To Bring To San Antonio
Go to the: San Antonio Packing List
While at DOOR, groups stay in San Antonio Mennonite Church. Cooking is
done in the church kitchen and participants sleep on the floor in
Sunday school rooms. Each participant should bring a sleeping bag,
sleeping mat (some foam mats are available,) a towel, and toiletries.
Work clothing is a must and other casual/sport clothing as desired.
There are no laundry facilities at the church. A packing list will be
included in the orientation materials sent in the spring.
Transportation
The
DOOR-San Antonio program relies on a combination of public
transportation (buses) and the vehicles you come in for transportation
of your work teams to and from service assignments around San Antonio.
You are responsible for driving your own vehicles around the city. If
you are thinking of coming by plane, train, school or touring bus, you
have two options. First, you may rent vans in San Antonio as needed to
transport your group to service assignments. Second, you may choose to
use public transportation for your entire experience. There is a $15
additional cost per person (this option is limited to the summer and to
30 people per week) if you choose the public transportation option.
Riding public transportation throughout the city is often a valuable
learning experience and a good way to see the city from a local
perspective. For those arriving in school or touring buses, you may be
required to park your bus somewhere other than the host site due to
limited parking space.
While
participating in the DOOR program, there is always the chance that
volunteers will need medical care. Accidents can and do happen while at
the service assignments, during recreational activities and free time,
even on the trip to and from San Antonio. Since the DOOR program does not
carry medical insurance for participants, we ask that group leaders
make sure that all group members have insurance and that the DOOR
Medical Release Forms (sent along with orientation the materials) are
completed and available to our staff while your group is in San Antonio.
And Finally...
Additional San Antonio Information
In addition to learning about service, we hope DOOR participants will
have fun! The DOOR staff tries to be sure that not all your time in San
Antonio is spent working or being involved in serious discussions. We
have built into the schedule one free evening and free time each
afternoon. We invite participants to bring recreation and entertainment
ideas with them.
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