Summer Service Photography Exhibit | Loyola Academy

Through a Rambler’s Lens: Summer Service Photography Exhibit

9/25/2026

View Exhibit Opening Day Photo Gallery

Student and college pictures featured in The Best Photographs from Summer Service 2026 captures moments of service, reflection and kinship from 18 immersion journeys accomplished by Loyola Academy college students through the spring and summer season of 2026.

Nearly 200 members of the Class of 2027 traveled to 11 places throughout the United States, the place they encountered new communities, participated in significant service and mirrored on how God calls them to reply to the wants of the world.

Selected from images taken by college students, college members and chaperones, the exhibition captures the breadth of those experiences, together with hanging landscapes, South Dakota sunsets, Ramblers working alongside neighborhood companions and friendships constructed over late-night card video games. Images of flowers, barbed wire, shared meals and repair in motion provide an intimate glimpse into experiences that problem college students to see the world and their place inside it with new eyes.

“The photographs in this exhibition represent impactful moments from the eighteen immersion service trips,” mentioned Fine Arts Department Chair and exhibit curator Pat Patterson. “Some were selected for the magical landscapes they captured, while others were chosen for the way they portrayed Ramblers at work.”

Loyola Academy’s Summer Service Immersion Program types college students to develop into ladies and men for others whose religion is expressed via service and a dedication to justice. During the five- to seven-day experiences, college students immerse themselves in various communities, take heed to these most affected by injustice and be taught from these working for social change. Their service contains residence restore, neighborhood gardening, visiting older adults and dealing with kids.

Students additionally dwell merely, construct neighborhood and take part in prayer and day by day reflection. Upon returning to Loyola, they’re inspired to think about how they will proceed appearing in solidarity with others and contributing to a extra simply world.

The exhibit additionally referenced A Community of Kinship, by Rev. Greg Boyle, SJ, and his imaginative and prescient of overcoming the perceived division between “us” and “them” and recognizing the shared dignity that unites all folks.

For many individuals, the expertise was transformative.

“Summer Service truly shifted my mindset on so many things—it was one of the best weeks of my life,” one pupil mirrored.

Another pupil described the lasting impression of the expertise: “I have learned how to communicate with others who are different from me, how to appreciate the small acts of God, how to deepen connections with those I do not know well and, most importantly, so much about myself and what I want to become.”

The exhibition celebrates each the photographers who documented these moments and the scholars, educators and neighborhood companions who made them doable. Special thanks go to Service Immersion Coordinator Megan Kennedy-Farrell, Melissa Krein, Leslie Ann Yatabe, Matthew Leonard ’89, Alice Kearney-Alwin ’98, Colleen Aufderheide LdM ’85, and Geoffrey Arndt for his or her help in gathering and reviewing the pictures, getting ready the photographs, hanging the frames and supporting the mission.

The Best Photographs from Summer Service 2026 will likely be on show via October 22 within the McGrath Family Performing Arts Center Gallery. Parents and different guests who want to view the exhibition ought to contact Pat Patterson at [email protected] to rearrange a go to.