A passion for service:
Teens show incredible commitment to improving lives
Striving to make a difference in the lives of children in Uganda, Bishop Chatard High School seniors, from left, Claire Schaffner, Elisabeth Patterson, Sarah Commiskey and Eleanor McReynolds have raised money and awareness through their “Invisible Children” efforts. (Submitted photo)
By John Shaughnessy
Here’s the one statistic that Bob Tully wants you to remember when you
consider whether young people today are committed to making a difference in their communities and the world.
As he teaches a course called Christian Ministry at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, Tully requires his students to do 48 hours of community service during the semester-long class. It’s a daunting challenge in young lives that also include homework, jobs, college applications, extracurricular activities, and time for friends and family.
So it comes as an eye-opening surprise when Tully shares the average number of community service hours that students in his class actually performed: 104.
More than double the requirement.
“What we find is that every person has a spark inside them,” says Tully, a teacher, coach and campus minister at Roncalli. “If we can fan the spark, we’ve found the kids love to make a difference in the world.”
Here are the stories of several high school students in the archdiocese who
represent the incredible commitment that young people make in improving the lives of others.
A champion for children
In five years, Susie Bickel has gone from wanting to be a track star to being in a wheelchair for a while to becoming a champion for other children in Washington, D.C.
When she was 10, Susie fell during a track practice, hurting her wrist. The pain lingered for months, a period during which she experienced fevers as high as 103 degrees, and doctors struggled to find the cause of her failing health. She was rushed to the hospital one day by
her parents when the pain became unbearable and she turned pale.
While she was hospitalized for a week, doctors determined she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis—a condition that sounds minor to many until they learn
that it’s the leading cause of disability for children, Susie says.
“It’s different from regular arthritis,” she says. “It can affect all my joints at the same time and my organs. Once the pain was so bad I had to be in a wheelchair for a month. I have to be given tons of medicine. I had to be home-schooled my freshman year because the
pain was so bad.”
Now a sophomore at Cardinal Ritter High School in Indianapolis, Susie works hard to increase awareness about the disease that affects 300,000 children in the United States. Earlier this year, she made her second trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with the staffs of U.S. Congresswoman Julia Carson and Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar to seek their support of the Arthritis Prevention, Control and Cure Act.
“Susie is a great educator and a powerful example of someone who lives and breathes this disease,” says Ed Wills Jr., president of the Indiana chapter of the Arthritis Foundation. “Here she is, just 15 years old, struggling to even walk through the halls of Congress just to talk to someone about her condition. Susie should be proud of what she’s accomplished.”
If she is, she keeps it to herself. Instead, she talks about the nationwide shortage of pediatric rheumatologists and the need for early diagnosis to prevent permanent
disability. She also mentions the upcoming Arthritis Walk fundraiser in Indianapolis on May 19.
“Right now, I’m doing really good,” she says. “I’m able to participate in things at school, which is great. I just want to help in finding a cure in any way I can. I always want to know if I can do more.”
A drive for independence
Daniel Kent had saved the money he needed to make his dream come true: $4,000 for a used car that would give him the independence that most teenagers seek.
Yet Kent decided to use the money to jump-start two organizations that he believed could change lives.
Using most of his savings, he founded Senior Connects, a volunteer organization that gives senior citizens the computer training to connect with others. He also started Net Literacy, an organization that provides computers for children to help in their
education.
“I really wanted to have this organization grow beyond a backyard project,” says Daniel, a senior at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis. “To do that required immense paperwork and legal aspects that were mind-boggling.”
Daniel believes the money was well-spent. Since 2003, Senior Connects has provided computer access to about 20,000 senior citizens in independent and assisted-living facilities in three states. His volunteer organization has also raised more than $500,000 in grants and donations of computers, many of which his group has refurbished and given to children from needy families.
“It started when I volunteered at my
public library, teaching computer skills,” he says. “One day, I was teaching a gentleman who said he really enjoyed the program and he was talking about it to a friend at his retirement community. His friend was
confined to a wheelchair, and he couldn’t learn how to use a computer because there was no one at the retirement home to teach him. I wanted to help his friend.”
When Daniel couldn’t find a program to help the man, he started Senior Connects. Now, there are about 150 student volunteers in the program that is expanding across the country.
Daniel’s rewards include the cookies that senior citizens sometimes bake for him. His parents also bought him a 2001 green Subaru sedan because “they got really tired of driving me all around,” Daniel says with a laugh.
“Our generation has been labeled ‘The Me Generation’ by a lot of sociologists and the general media,” he says. “My personal goal is to help everyone. By empowering others, not only do you provide them with more opportunities, it builds and leads to other people helping others.”
‘We’ve all been changed by this’
The image of the small boy kept tugging at the hearts and gnawing at the consciences of Sarah Commiskey, Elisabeth Patterson, Claire Schaffner and Eleanor McReynolds.
The four seniors at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis kept thinking about the boy after they watched Invisible Children, a documentary about the civil war in Northern Uganda that focuses on how children are kidnapped by the rebel army and forced to become soldiers.
“They show different kids,” Claire says. “Some have starved, some have been attacked with machetes. They’re missing legs, and one boy cries because he’s been forced to kill. There’s also this boy who says he can’t cry because if he does it will show his weakness. Then the boy starts
crying. It’s like the whole grief of a nation is exemplified in this little boy.”
Touched, the four friends decided to try to help the children who flee from their homes and walk miles to find shelter at hospitals, schools and parks away from the rebel camps.
They raised money for the children by selling DVDs of the documentary and
creating T-shirts that read “Invisible Children” on the front and “If you don’t see them, who will?” on the back.
They also raised awareness through their efforts to have the documentary shown in some religion classes at Bishop Chatard and by advertising the Web site at
www.invisiblechildren.com.
Claire even asked her boss, Michael Sahm of Sahm’s Place, if they could have a fundraiser at the Indianapolis restaurant. He agreed, committing a certain percentage of sales one evening to the effort. All the money the friends have raised will be donated to a school in Uganda.
“We are all made in the image of God,” Sarah says. “No matter what race, color or origin we come from, we all deserve to be treated like God’s children. We should definitely help any way we can.”
Elisabeth nods her head in agreement.
“It made me see we can be the change we want to see in the world,” she says.
The experience has touched their lives so much that some have even switched their college plans to medicine and nursing so they can help heal others in the future.
“We’ve all been changed by this,” Eleanor says. “This has helped us find that God has a plan for every person. God has blessed us. He wants his children to look out for other children around the world.”
The small moments that last
In four years at Roncalli, Laura Mountel has performed more than 430 hours of community service. But it’s not the time she remembers; it’s the small moments that linger forever in her mind.
Like the elderly couple she met during a weeklong service trip to Appalachia last summer, a couple who must have thanked her and her fellow workers at least 20 times for completing a badly-needed paint job for their house. Or the smile on the face of the deaf man after they built a new porch for his house.
“The things we were doing seemed so small to us, but it seemed like a new beginning to them,” Laura says.
There are also the memories of playing bingo nearly every Wednesday afternoon at an Indianapolis nursing home.
“We’d listen to their stories, and it made them happy,” she says. “They
actually had a countdown board to when we would come again.”
She has also taught a Sunday School class for 2-year-olds at her parish, St. Barnabas in Indianapolis. And she
has led A Promise to Keep sessions for middle-school students, talking to them about chastity and abstaining from sex until marriage.
“I don’t have a lot of free time because I do a lot of extracurriculars,” Laura says. “But when I have the time, I make it. It’s really not that hard for you to do. It makes you think about and appreciate what you have.” †
