There are so many amazing gap year programs out there, so how do you choose which one to participate in? Here are 7 things that we believe make Denver Gap Year a unique experience:
Denver
That’s right, the first thing that makes DGY unique is the very city it’s located in! Denver gives you the accessibility of a large city, but also the ability to escape to the nearby mountains. Whether you are interested in major sports, art districts, great food, music scenes, or the outdoors, Denver has it all! Just make sure to invest in a good pair of sunglasses, as the city boasts to have over 300 days of sunshine a year.
International experience
A total of one month during the gap year experience will be spent abroad. At the end of the first term participants and staff will travel to Manila, Philippines to serve alongside an orphanage for former street children. The second trip will take place at the end of the year with participants traveling to the G42 Leadership Academy in Mijas, Spain. This will be a time to debrief, challenge, celebration, and engagement in G42 community.
Local community service
Every participant will choose one nonprofit organization to serve with during their gap year. This allows the participants to gain valuable skills and insight to combat injustice locally, rather than just abroad. All nonprofit options are official partners of Denver Gap Year.
Classroom experience
Participants will learn in a classroom setting from staff, pastors, Christian leaders, and people working in the marketplace. The diverse selection of people brought into the classroom to teach will give participants an opportunity to learn many valuable lessons and subjects such as theology and leadership development.
Community living
At DGY, community is the center and heartbeat of the entire program. The participants will live together in a house, supervised by house parents, where they will partake in nightly community dinners. The dynamic of this “kitchen table discipleship” breeds fellowship between participants, staff, and visiting teachers in a way that is different than in the classroom. Our goal is to keep the number of participants small enough to form genuine relationships with everyone.
Growth through adventure
Participants will take monthly adventures such as whitewater rafting, mountain biking, camping, backpacking and hiking a famous Colorado 14er. Being pushed to test one’s comfort zone in different ways creates such a unique growth within an individual as well as a stronger bond within a community.
Staff and teachers
Every DGY staffer has a passion for discipleship. We want to empower the participants to discover their identity, activate their purpose, and engage in the world around them, and every teacher that visits shares the same vision as well. Most, if not all, of the staff has gone through our own sort of transformational gap year experience, and we are here to mentor participants throughout the year.
Does Denver Gap Year sound like something you would like to participate in? If so, go ahead and check out the rest of our website, contact us for more information, or fill out an application!