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By Rebecca Rakoczy, Staff Writer
DULUTH—Take about 70 teens, give them plastic grocery bags,
maps and a package of Mother Teresa prayer cards, and let them loose in small
groups in unfamiliar neighborhoods for more than three hours. Their mission: to
collect food for the hungry and to share their faith.
That’s the directive of GIVE, the acronym for “Growing
In Virtue Eternally,” a special outreach ministry involving youth.
In the past, community service projects for high school students
have often involved smaller scale volunteer projects, like working on the
school grounds or spending a few hours a semester in a soup kitchen. But Father
Scott Reilly, LC, chaplain at St. Pius X High School, wanted to incorporate
another element into service: prayer.
“We were looking at how we could empower the people with whom
I work to plug into charity, evangelization and the needs of others,” he
said. The idea of GIVE was established; Msgr. Hugh Marren, pastor of St.
Benedict Church, Duluth, came up with the slogan that fit its purpose, Father
Reilly said.
But for many of the St. Pius High School students who participated
Nov. 17, the idea of going door-to-door praying with complete strangers was a
new one.
After a special Mass at St. Benedict’s, celebrated by Father
Reilly, the group gathered in the church’s meeting hall for a short
training session on the etiquette of going door to door. “Now don’t
hang back, don’t hide behind one another,” Father Reilly told the
group. “Walk on the sidewalks, don’t go across someone’s
lawn.” Perhaps the most challenging words were “and ask them to pray
with you.”
Father Reilly also gave the group a goal: Collect one ton of food
for Our Lady of the Americas Mission in Doraville.
With a beautiful, unusually warm Saturday afternoon beckoning
them, the teens listened intently to Father Reilly and GIVE volunteer
coordinators, Matt Metzger and Earne Bentley, as they explained their project.
Earlier in the week, Metzger and Bentley canvassed the
neighborhoods surrounding the Duluth parish, breaking up the students’
routes with about 45-60 houses per group. Neighborhood maps and notebooks for
recording the number of pounds of food were distributed to student leaders.
After a meal of donated Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, sodas and cookies, the teens
set out.
“I hope we touch a lot of people, and I hope we get a lot out
of it,” said Christina Timm, a St. Pius junior, before setting off with
her group.
For St. Pius juniors Hunter Slagle, Amelia Williams, Erin Elstad
and Chris Thompson, it was a new experience to pray with strangers. “I
like this a lot,” said Williams, “but I feel like I’m
intruding.”
As their grocery bags began to bulge with cans of fruit,
vegetables and tuna fish and boxes of instant rice and macaroni and cheese,
they became more comfortable with their quest of collecting food and sharing a
prayer.
One man invited the group into his home while he searched for
canned food to donate. A picture of Jesus was hung prominently in his foyer.
Another sheepishly told the students, “I am sorry; my wife isn’t home
and I wouldn’t know what I could give” — before he shut the door
quietly behind him.
Still another told the group to come back; he would have a few
things for them. The students were bowled over when the man left two large
boxes of canned goods, totaling more than 30 pounds. “We’ve got to go
back and thank him,” Slagle said.
The group found the man raking his yard, and gave him a Mother
Teresa card. “Would you pray with us?” asked Slagle, and the four
teens bowed their heads with the man, and recited the Mother Teresa prayer for
the poor. “Make us, Lord, worthy to serve our brothers and sisters who are
scattered all over the world, who live and die alone and poor. Give them today,
using our hands, their daily bread. And using our love, give them peace and
happiness. Amen.”
After visiting more than 1,000 homes, all of the groups of teens
went back to St. Benedict’s. Father Reilly, Metzger and Bentley delivered
the food to the Doraville mission that day. The group collected more than 1,500
pounds of canned and dried food for the Doraville mission.
“I was nervous at the first house,” said Nicci Fagan,
who visited 29 houses with her group. “But afterwards, it was really
easy.”
Said Slagle, “I think it’s a good way to try to bring
people closer to God.”
That’s the kind of reaction that makes it all worthwhile for
Father Reilly.
“A lot of them (the teens) are doing this for service hours,
but I think what’s going to happen is they’re going to get
hooked,” he said.
“They’re going in the spirit of St. Francis (of Assisi),
sharing Christ’s love and evangelizing, and if you need to do so, use
words, in this case, a prayer by Mother Teresa.”
Father Reilly already has plans for helping to spread the GIVE
program to other parishes, youth programs and high schools throughout the
archdiocese. |
