St Clare - Youth Ministry

St. Clare Church is working to grow our Youth Ministry program and our future generation of parishioners. We have a group of middle school and high school students who participate weekly in faith formation. Several of these young people have also been active in diocesan events, joining other parish youth groups in growing their relationship with Jesus! Fr. Charles Arthur is a huge supporter of growing the youth ministry program at St. Clare.

Our goal with iGive Catholic is to raise funds to help with the costs of our students attending these types of events. In March of 2026 the Diocese of Biloxi will host the 49th Annual Youth Convention (DBYC). This is a weekend long event for students 9th through 12th. The Sunday afternoon of this weekend is reserved for middle school students. We were among this group in March 2025, and our students are eager to attend again in 2026!! 

Three of our youth serve as Altar Servers, one is learning how to make sure our home bound can view and hear the Mass via FaceBook live. Many of our youth are active volunteers with the Lenten Fish Dinners and during the Annual Seafood Festival. Some of our youth are also very active in the Stations of the Cross during Lent. We would love for them to remain involved and increase the number of youth involvement. As our group grows the costs associated with attendance will also grow. We greatly appreciate your donations toward our future of St. Clare. 

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Provided below is an overview of the culmination of the academic year of activities.......

                                    The Theme for DBYC 2026 is.. ."Called and Commissioned!"                                              

                             

This year will be the 49th Annual DBYC (Diocese of Biloxi Youth Convention) held at Mississippi Coast Coliseum (2350 Beach Blvd, Biloxi, MS 39531)  DBYC invites all the parishes to come together with their youth groups to celebrate the faith through community, mass, keynote speakers, and worship.  The Diocesan Spirit Movers (10th – 12th grade peer ministry team) are the force behind planning the skits, theme, decorations, and act as the Masters of Ceremonies. Target age group for DBYC is 9th – 12th grade.

Started in 1977, the goals have been to encourage community within our entire diocese.  In many ways, if our young people don’t travel outside their own town or visit other churches they may not realize that other young people excited about their Catholic faith exist nearby. 

The weekend of March 13 - 15, 2026 will be filled with fellowship, guest speakers and service activities.   For lunch, we even invite our young people to dine with our seminarians and other religious to discuss religious vocations.  We close Saturday night with Adoration/XLT and Reconciliation.  We invite all the priests in our diocese to participate in the Reconciliation service. We will have awards for our teens and volunteers; along with closing mass on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, March 15, 2026 (between 2pm-5pm) we have a Middle School Rally for our 6th-8th grade youth in each parish, with a keynote speaker and praise and worship opportunities.

We constantly gather feedback from our Spirit Movers and parishes to grow the DBYC into something relevant to our young people while staying rooted in the catechesis of the Catholic church.  The goal of this annual event is provide an encounter opportunity for the youth of our diocese to grow in relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church.