Students involved in Catholic campus ministry at the University of Louisville will be blogging about service work they plan to do during their spring break next week.

Two groups of Catholic students will join young people from other faith traditions in Appalachia and on the Gulf Coast March 14-19 to help repair the homes of people living in poverty.

The blog, which is already being updated, can be accessed by visiting http://ulifcasb.wordpress.com. Students plan to update it regularly during their trips.

Forty students will be heading to Slidell, La., an area hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 where people are still living in sub-par housing and FEMA trailers.

A blog update posted March 3 by Sarah Fellows, director of Catholic campus ministry at U of L, notes: “The Gulf Coast continues the work of rebuilding itself while the poorest and those with the least resources find themselves still in FEMA trailers ... and now fighting the depression and hopelessness that come with years with little change in their situations.”

Eight students plan to stay closer to home, serving in Flatgap, Ky., where, the blog says, “Appalachia fights a very different kind of poverty and hopelessness. Generations have learned to resign themselves to few resources and little attention from the outside world.”

Campus ministry has coordinated trips similar to these in years past, and the blog notes that the students keep the people they encounter in their hearts all year. They plan to continue the alternative spring break tradition, Fellows writes in the blog, noting “our commitment to them will continue until the need is no longer there.”

In addition to the blog, students also plan to post brief messages via twitter.com. To access their messages, search for “#cardsasb” on the Twitter home page.