The deadline for applications to travel to Canton, Mississippi, on Notre Dame Academy’s eleventh annual service trip is fast approaching.

Juniors and seniors interested in making the trip must have all forms and essays finished by January 22.

Notre Dame’s Campus Minister, Sr. Laura Zelten, who organizes the trip, said that more students are applying than ever.

“We are willing to take more students than usual this year,” Zelten said. “In the past, we have limited numbers to around fifteen, but there is plenty of work to be done down there, so we set the number at 25 this year.”

Canton is a small city in Mississippi, and it is one of the poorest.

Each year students head down South to help some people out, and every one of them comes home with new friends, more awareness to the poverty in the world and the accomplished feeling of doing service.

Zelten has made numerous trips to Canton and feels that it is a great way for the students to “climb out of our culture, even for just a week, and get something out of it.”

Peter Smith, a graduate of Notre Dame who was accepted to go to Canton last year, said the experience opened his eyes to a less-sheltered world than Green Bay, Wisconsin.

“I had a great time being able to go down there and feel like I was doing something good spending time with Sr. Laura and my peers,” Smith said.

Smith was surprised to see so much poverty but so many happy people in the same place.

“Everyone I met was friendly. For the first time in my life I felt like a minority, but it was great to feel so accepted by the people of Canton,” said Smith.

Zelten feels that an opportunity to go on a trip like this builds a foundation for students to do more service work in the future.

“The seed is planted now,” Zelten said. “We have had a few students who previously went to Canton who have since traveled to impoverished parts of Africa and other third-world countries to do work.”

The committee will look at each individual’s application and do a few interviews to see who is most fit to go on the trip.

Every person has the same chances going in to qualify for the trip, and both Zelten and Smith encouraged students to apply.

“It’s a chance to do something good and take you a little bit out of your comfort zone,” Smith said. “But no matter what sort of worries you have, the feeling when you are finished is well worth it.