Hello everyone! This year, I’ll be participating in two races to raise funds and awareness for RYC, a Catholic retreat program I currently oversee. The races will be the Ironman 70.3 in Geneva, NY on July 13th, as well as the 2025 TCS New York Marathon on November 2nd.
What’s RYC? RYC stands for Reborn Young Christ and is a retreat program offered for young adult Catholics in the tri-state area. Though RYC was originally founded back in 2004 and ceased operations in 2017, I’ve been blessed to work with a wonderful team of individuals to bring RYC back to life in 2023, and we’ve been able to offer retreats, events, and praise nights to our communities over the last two years.
Our mission for RYC is simple: we want to offer a retreat program that is simple, welcoming, and almost a “first step” in returning to the faith for those who may have fallen away from it. There have been many challenges for the Church over the last 10 years or so (pandemic and cultural challenges included), and we’ve seen countless individuals leave their parishes and faith entirely over this time period. We strive to welcome people back to their faith and meet fellow community members who are on the same journey as them to rediscovering faith.
While we focused specifically on young adults ages 21–35 in our first two years back, this year we’re expanding to two retreats—one for college students to early grads ages 18–24 from July 25th to July 27th, and one for our original intended audience of young adults ages 21–35 from November 28th to November 30th.
Why a separate retreat for 18–24? For all of us as Catholics growing up, our team has shared that we’ve all collectively majorly struggled in maintaining our faith through our college years. Especially in the past few years, resources have been limited on college campuses, finding similarly aged Catholics has been increasingly difficult, and Catholicism just hasn’t been seen positively for the youth or by the general public. Our group’s goal is to challenge this and to create a safe, fun, and positive network within our Church that can grow together and power our communities for many years to come.
The cost of a retreat house for a single weekend for 65 people is roughly $20,000. Between our goal of two retreats this year, that would be about $40,000 in costs just for housing for the weekends (about $300 per person). Through these races, I’m hoping to raise enough money to be able to slash costs for our participants and team members significantly for both retreats—and that’s where I’ll need all of your help the most. We want to make these retreats as accessible as possible for everyone, and to continue to welcome back and remind people of the beauty of our faith and our churches.
I truly believe in the future of all of our churches despite challenging times in recent years. My dream is simply for RYC to not be the end goal, but rather a small stepping stone to helping our youth rediscover faith and to rebuilding our parishes all across the East Coast.
Even if you’re not someone who considers themselves religious or Catholic, I just want to say thank you for reading this far. RYC was a home for me during a time when I felt lost, and that’s really what we’re trying to create for others too—a home. A place for our participants to feel welcomed, heard, and supported, regardless of where you are in your faith journey (or even if you’re still figuring that part out). Our hope is simply to offer space for young people to reconnect—with themselves, with others, and maybe even with their faith.
Organizer
Rono Yick
Organizer
Astoria, NY