More from Vegas:
It is possible to spend 5 weeks of planning a car wash to make $12.34 for the youth group.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t fit 22 middle schoolers in a 15 passenger van.
Always check the Confirmation names of the students BEFORE the bishop asks them what it is.
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were right: Parents just don’t understand.
Always check to see if the bus driver knows where he is supposed to go and has a valid drivers license.
Nothing tears a youth group apart like a pack of wild dogs.
Never get drunk at a staff social.
Ever!
The further you are from the closest hospital the more likely you are going to need to visit.
If you wear khaki pants to work, everyone else on staff will ask you, “Why are you dressed up?”
The one box that won’t make it into the back of the van for retreat will be the one that has all the supplies for small group.
First goal of every youth group activity is for no one to die.
No matter what the schedule looks like and what programming you do, 70% of the evaluations will complain about the quality of the food, ask for more free time, and ask for a longer dance.
No matter how hard you try to explain what you do, your parents are still going to wonder when you are going to get a real job.
Even with all the liability forms, crazy budgets, dysfunctional parish staffs, crazy bus drivers, and disgruntled parents, years from now there will be someone who will say that their life was different because someone like you took the time to love them. And that’s why we keep doing it.
[by Bob Rice and Gene Monterastelli]

By request form Las Vegas (the rest to follow):
On January 4th, 1996 at Holy Family Parish in Madison, WI Sophomore Sally Smith turned in a permission slip on time.
At the Fan the Flame Rally in Philadelphia on Nov. 11th, 2006 all twelve members of the St. Mary’s youth group wore their name tags, and wore them in a place that could be easily read.
August 18th, 1981: The National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry decided to go by their initials, the NFCYM- saving youth ministers 9 syllables of valuable time. They would later shorten the National Catholic Youth Conference to NCYC, and the National Conference on Catholic Youth Ministry to the NCCYM, saving youth ministers 12 syllables- 14 if you’re from a region that pronounces “conference” as “con-fer-ence”. So what do CYMs do with all this extra time? Nothing really. They still show late to everything.
June 6th, 1986 at Camp Thunderbird in South Carolina. While the sr. high group from St. Philip’s was on retreat, at curfew, four high school juniors went to their cabin and went right to sleep. The Vatican is investigating the miracle as part of the Youth Minister Ben Miller’s canonization process.
October 13th, 1983: Youth Minister Sally Casandra, tired from a long retreat, yawned and stretched out her hands while her teens were singing about Jesus. And just like that, hand motions were created.
On Sept 5, 2004 The parish secretary of St. Gregory’s parish in Clear Lake, IA was amazed, for when she opened up the parish center Youth Minister Joe Johnson was already in his office, hard at work.
[Orin whispers in to Shannon's ear]
Oh sorry, Joe was still at the parish after a lock-in and simply hadn’t gone home.
January 15th, 1998, an icebreaker at St. Albert’s parish got out of control and a teen accidentally broke a window. When George, the maintenance man heard about it, he responded- “Hey, I understand what you are doing with the kids. Break as many windows as you like, after all, that’s what I’m here for!”
by: Bob Rice and Gene Monterastelli