Outreach Programs

CYFM leads three week-long service projects throughout the year. Two are held locally at the retreat center in Garrison, NY and one is based in Harlan, KY. The outreach programs are designed to develop solidarity with the poor, witness to communal, gospel living, and put our Catholic Social Teaching in action through direct service and acts of compassion and justice.

CYFM reaches out to a variety of ministry sites: Habitat for Humanity, Vacation Bible School, soup kitchen, school for autistic children, outreach for children of migrant workers, hospice home, and others.

For over 16 years the Capuchin Appalachia Mission (CAM) has provided meaningful service in one of the poorest counties in the US.

Appalachia Mission Video

Watch the above video for a glimpse into the CAM experience featuring the CYFM community on mission in Kentucky!

CYFM outreach programs heighten the participants’ awareness of the needs of the poor.

CYFM strives to incorporate Catholic social teaching on the structures and cause of poverty into each outreach experience.

Our daily schedule includes quiet time for reflection, communal prayer, small group theological reflection, and Mass.

The Prayer of St. Francis Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.