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ATTLEBORO - Two Bishop Feehan High School students who haven't gone to college yet have already spent a spring break south of the border. Their destination wasn't Cancún, the famous Mexican party spot, but rather Guaimaca, a town in the Central American nation of Honduras.

Matthew Gill, 18, and Brooke Stapleton, 17, spent time in Honduras, along with members of their church, St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro. The group traveled with the Diocesan Mission Project in Guaimaca (pronounced why-MOCK-ah), which is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River.

Founded in 2000 by then-Bishop of Fall River Sean O'Malley, who is now a cardinal and the archbishop of Boston, the mission tends to the spiritual and physical needs of the people of Guaimaca and the surrounding area.

Those needs are great. According to the diocese, 66 percent of the Honduran population live in poverty, approximately 25,000 children suffer from chronic malnutrition, and 36 out of every 1,000 children die from diarrhea annually.

One-fifth of the population is illiterate, and only a tiny 4 percent of young Hondurans have access to a high school education. "We are in such drastic need for asthma medicines, antibiotics, hypertension medicines and vitamins," said one of the missionaries, Sister Maria Ceballos.

While they were in Guaimaca, Gill, who graduated from Feehan last week, and Stapleton, who will be a senior there this fall, assisted the missionaries in various tasks, including sorting prescriptions at local health clinics, repairing a school building, and delivering items from the St. Vincent de Paul Society Store.

But what stood out most from the trip was the people the pair met.

"My favorite thing was interacting with the kids," said Gill, who plans to attend McDaniel College in Maryland this fall. "They are so outgoing."

The two, accompanied by a Eucharistic minister, also met a bedridden 95-year-old woman who is looked after by her nephew. They met the woman in her small house, which has a dirt floor, no plumbing, and no electricity.

The woman received Communion, and the students also brought her a new fabric mattress from the St. Vincent de Paul store. They gave her a new glow-in-the-dark rosary, as well.

For more information on the mission, visit www.honduranmission.org.

TED NESI can be reached at 508-236-333 or at tnesi@thesunchronicle.com.