College Student Enjoys Land Program

October 30, 2001. Meriden, Connecticut

Meghan Fieber, a college student from Wisconsin, joined the Franciscan Land Program in September 2001. She shares the following about her experience:

"Land Program is a community service-based volunteer program that involves work on the campus of the Franciscan Sisters. We have a director with whom we work very closely. Each day holds new and exciting jobs for us to do, such as painting a barn, clearing a field, picking apples, washing windows and maintaining the gardens. Land Program participants also study aspects of Human Work through the Holy Father's teachings with the guidance of one of the Sisters.

"I decided to participate in the Land Program after visiting my aunt, Sister Barbara Johnson, with my family a month earlier. I have completed my first year of college at the University of Minnesota, in the Twin Cities, and am still not sure of a possible major. The Land Program was appealing to me because this was offering me time to look at many different types of work and to help me to find a topic of study that was interesting. I have known the Franciscan Community my entire life and was aware of the variety of skills, talents and occupations each sister had, and of their willingness to share the knowledge they possess. Since I have been in the Land Program I have talked to many Sisters about their professions, some have even allowed me to observe them.

"There are other people here in the Land Program with me, and we are all here for different reasons, and we are all learning different things. I have learned so much in the two months that I have been here, things that I would have never done, seen or tried if I had not slowed my pace of life down and taken the opportunity to participate in the Land Program."