Photo By DALE DONG
Walsh student Stephanie Simcox talks to Raymond, Phil, Roger, and fellow classmate Anna Gilboy as part of the Labre Ministry.
Walsh student Stephanie Simcox talks to Raymond, Phil, Roger, and fellow classmate Anna Gilboy as part of the Labre Ministry.
Walsh students learn compassion, justice from Labre ministry
AKRON-It’s difficult for Ray to wake-up on time to catch the bus to get to work. His life, after all, isn’t typical.
He explained that it’s tough to wake-up because he doesn’t have an alarm clock. When he does wake-up, he doesn’t have a watch to tell him how much time he has before he needs to catch his bus to get to his minimum-wage job.
Ray, 24, who chose not to give his last name, explained that he sleeps in doorways of Akron’s downtown buildings. Those doorways give him some shelter, as he tries to stay as warm and dry as possible.
Ray is one of Summit County’s more than 6,600 homeless people and one of more than 40 people served in downtown Akron by Walsh Jesuit High School’s Labre ministry every Monday night.
Walsh Jesuit’s Labre ministry is named for St. Benedict Joseph Labre, an 18th century Frenchman who was refused entry into religious orders because of suspected mental illness, lived among and served the poor on the streets of European cities throughout his adult life.
Every Monday night a van-full of a dozen 11th and 12th-grade students from the Cuyahoga Falls’ Catholic high school comes to downtown Akron to distribute food, clothing, hygiene products and most importantly—friendship—to the homeless, just as their patron saint did throughout Europe.
“Through a simple sandwich we offer friendship,” said Jodie Bowers, Walsh Jesuit High School’s director of campus ministries and faculty advisor for the Labre ministry. “The people we serve are our friends. And they give so much to us (in terms of friendship),” Bowers said.
For the past 75 weeks, Bowers and more than 250 of his students have been conducting this ministry and there are no plans to stop. This program is very popular, Bowers said. “There’s a little competition to participate,” Bowers said, as he explained how the junior and senior students in the high school’s social justice league run to the Labre ministry sign-up sheet each week to try and get one of the 12 spots on the van.
Nick Messino, 18, of Cleveland Heights, is a senior at Walsh Jesuit who often participates in the Monday-night program. He started last year and has lost count of just how many times he’s been one of those serving.
“This has really opened my eyes,” Messino said. “I’ve done other social justice work, but this (ministry) is really what got me interested in understanding the poor.”
Messino talked about the stereotypes many people have regarding the homeless population--that the homeless are lazy, or that they choose to live on the streets. “I’ve found that these stereotypes aren’t true,” he said.
Messino said he sees people struggling to live—as they fight addictions, disabilities, mental illness, and life situations that lead to losing their housing.
Ray is a prime example of Messino’s description of what he sees as he ministers.
Ray reported that he suffered a near-fatal head-injury as a teen and that lead to a lifetime of struggling with health issues and medical bills. Ray, who does hold a job, gives most of his money to his wife and two children, a son, 10, and a daughter, 7.
Ray’s family now lives with friends, but there is no room for him to stay there, too. He and his wife are trying to save enough money to get a place of their own. “Right now, I try to make sure (my family) is taken care of,” he said. Ray has been on the street for about a year-and-a-half. His family was homeless for about the first six months of his homeless experience.
Ray admits to having trouble with substance abuse and reported that he recently received a conviction for marijuana possession. He had to use his limited funds to pay a $250 fine to avoid jail time.
Anna Spittler, 16, of Hudson, a junior at Walsh Jesuit, feels that an important part of their Labre ministry is when they “just sit and chat” with the people they serve—people such as Ray. The students build friendships with certain people “and you see (the homeless) gravitating to certain kids,” she said.
Recently Spittler served as the ‘scribe’ for the Labre ministry. Each week one of the students takes the responsibility to keep a journal about their experience that evening. They also write down any special requests for clothing or hygiene products. When they return to the school after an evening of ministry, the student pray over the journal and reflect on what they saw and what was written that night.
Twelve students in the Labre ministry spent the first weekend in April living as if they were homeless. The students went to breakfast at the Peter Maurin Center, which is downtown Akron’s Catholic worker center. They also went to St. Bernard Church’s parking lot where sandwiches are passed-out each morning and visited Akron’s Haven of Rest soup kitchen.
The retreat culminated with the students sleeping in cardboard boxes on the lawn of the school on a 40-degree night. Messino said that building his cardboard box ‘home’ that night made him realize that the people who live like on the streets have to be tough. “If I really had to (live like) this, I probably couldn’t do it,” he said.
Brown is a freelance writer.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?
Email Dennis Sadowski, Editor at:
editorial@catholicuniversebulletin.org
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSE BULLETIN IS PUBLISHED EVERY OTHER FRIDAY BY THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSE BULLETIN PUBLISHING CO., INC. COPYRIGHT 2006,