De Sales Service Works, DSW, is a Catholic service organization sponsored by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and based in the heart of Camden, New Jersey. Our work invites people into the vision of Jesus, hoping to be a gentle presence in a busy, hard-edged world. Our service is hands-on and helpful for the people we encounter. We learn from one another as we form relationships and share our common faith and compassion across economic, cultural, social, and language differences. The Oblates welcome DSW volunteers to Camden to live, work, and pray, serve, and experience a retreat in this urban setting.
SALESIAN SERVICE RETREAT
SALESIAN service retreat: The Oblates sponsor DeSales Service Works because we believe that the balanced and wise spirit of St. Francis DeSales has a lot to offer our modern world. And, like our saint, we are committed to cooperating with God’s will for justice and peace in our world.
Salesian SERVICE retreat: There are many service opportunities here. DSW is networked with a soup kitchen, a clothing center, a parish grade school, and a nursing home.
In addition, special projects include: community gardening, housing painting and refurbishment, visiting families and older people in their homes. In all the service, we aim to work with people, rather than for them.
There is also the opportunity to tour other sites in the neighborhood that provide Christian service. Much can be learned from exposure to these ministries.
Salesian service RETREAT: It is a truism that very often the one who serves receives as much from service as those who are helped---but it really is true in many ways. The retreat aspect of DSW includes opportunity to reflect on the experience of service. We can design a retreat schedule to include Mass, prayer with the Oblate community, Taize, shared meals, and presentations on Salesian spirituality and Catholic social teaching.
We use the term “service retreats” because those who come here can work and serve in all the ministries of DSW. This service naturally gives rise to thoughts, feelings, prayer, and reflection. Thus this is also a natural setting for retreat---for encounter with God.
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Basic Element of a Service Retreat Including a Sample Schedule
WHO?
Young people: college groups, high school groups, confirmation students, youth groups, CSC groups, students fulfilling service hour requirements.
Older people: parish groups, retirees, parish ministry groups, families.
WHEN?
Visit and retreat for a day, a weekend or longer period of time. The time period could a day of recollection within a school day (maybe 9:00-2:00), a longer day (maybe 9:00 til after dinner), and evening, a long weekend, a week, an alternative spring break, Holy Week, Christmas vacation, a week or two in the summer.
WHAT?
Serve, pray, reflect, and recreate while living in the DSW community. Volunteers come to do much-needed, practical service in a very poor community.
Salesian spirituality encourages a balanced life, recreation is an important part of the experience. Groups here for an extended time can enjoy the school gym, Camden’s nearby waterfront, ballpark, and aquarium, as well as the cultural opportunities ten minutes away in downtown Philadelphia.
WHERE?
Camden: In a real sense, every setting is a place for service, but a place like Camden provides particularly clear service opportunities. The city was listed recently as the third poorest city of its size in the US. Like so many American urban neighborhoods, Camden is characterized by hard edges, constrained horizons, homelessness, drugs, and disorder.
The DSW Neighborhood: The service retreats take place in a very urban place; however, the DSW house is located in a lively, immigrant neighborhood in Camden on a block with eight Church and service related houses. There is a medical center, legal-aid center, convent of Medical Mission Sisters, youth-computer center called Hopeworks, Lutheran church and Catholic grade school. People know who we are and why we are in the city. Of course, it is important to be smart and safe when spending any time in an urban area.
The DSW house can accommodate up to 30 young people. It has a kitchen, meeting rooms, and a chapel.
WHY?
This may be the most important question. We invite people to join us here for retreat to experience the Christian worldview of St. Francis de Sales, which believes in the power of Salesian gentleness, humility, and optimism. Of course these powers are needed everywhere, especially in an environment that is poor, tough and needs hope.
In Camden, NJ, the needs are obvious and urgent, but need is experienced wherever human beings are. We can make a difference in the lives of needy people in this poor city.
But a huge reason why to participate in a DSW service retreat is that it gives an opportunity to spend time away to for service, prayer and reflection to deepen a Christian vision in order more readily to recognize need and the power of Christian virtues for every place we find ourselves.
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