MCHS Steubenville Pilgrimage

Hello! We are a group of 20 high school students from Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize, Central America. The name of our school is Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School (MCHS). We are fundraising for a pilgrimage trip to the United States in order to attend a Steubenville Christian Youth Conference. These conferences are hosted every summer by Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio. The purpose of the conferences is for all of the youth in attendance to encounter Christ in a newer, more personal way, to grow deeper in the faith and to become more integrated into the life of the Church. For many of us, we have been dreaming of attending one of these conferences since we first heard of them 4 years ago.
The expenses for the trip include travel to and from the U.S., travel within the U.S., and food while we are there. A roundtrip plane ticket from Belize is $670. For travel within the U.S. + food, we are estimating an additional $250 per student. This means that each student is approximately $900. For 20 students, that is $18,000! Because the Belizean dollar is worth only half of the U.S. dollar, raising all of our funds in Belize would mean that we have to essentially raise twice the amount... that means we would have to raise $36,000 per student here!!! This is why we are looking for help from our friends and neighbors in the United States. Additionally, Belize is a developing country, so it is also much more difficult to raise the money solely here. We really need your help! And the grace of God!!! If you can help us in any way, it would be greatly appreciated! If not financially, please pray for us - it's more of a help than many people realize!