Four Notre Dame students spend a week in Chicago helping disadvantaged children from low-income families.
Four Notre Dame students traveled to Chicago last month to participate in a national Catholic service mission experience called “Young Neighbors in Action” (YNIA), which was sponsored through the Center for Ministry Development. Joy Fullerton, Margaret Henige, Gina Ivory and Katharine Lawrence, who will be seniors when school begins again next month, joined students from Cincinnati, Wisconsin and St. Paul on the Lake Parish in Grosse Pointe Farms in serving seven ministry organizations for a week in and around Chicago, Ill.
According to NDP campus minister Della Lawrence, all of the groups lived for the week in one community at Mt. Carmel High School in Chicago.
“The week began with community building,” Lawrence said. “The NDP ‘fab four’ introduced Notre Dame Prep to the other students as a real ‘family’ who thinks, feels, judges and acts like Mary in all things and work they do.”
They went on to talk about how Notre Dame students are challenged to think globally through an IB program and even taught the group how to do the NDP “roller coaster.” Throughout the week, the community also participated in dynamic praise and worship experiences and were challenged to live out their understanding of Catholic social teaching.
“We were under the protection of Mary during the entire trip,” Lawrence added. “Our group encountered Mary’s work in the world first-hand through a our ministry site, which was St. Mary of Celle Catholic Charities day care and preschool for low-income families. It’s even a struggle for parents just to be able to work. And many rely on state aid or charity services for child care.”
Lawrence said the children were almost constantly clinging to each of the students and seemingly more so to the Notre Dame seniors.
“Each day was filled with excitement, tears, tantrums, discovery, quiet moments, pure love and a greater appreciation for teachers and parents,” Lawrence said. “It took a day or two to adjust to the classroom schedules and identify how best to be of service but the kids quickly stepped up with their leadership skills by planning and implementing many school-wide projects.”
Henige and Katharine Lawrence put their IB art skills to practice and made a poster of a tree showing the students how God brings them all together. Teachers and staff hands were painted to make a tree trunk and they cut out leaves and wrote names on them. The tree roots were represented by St. Mary of Celle director Stephanie Newsome’s hands and attached to roots were words like faith, hope, love, friendship, and God. The girls then visited each classroom to get thumbprints of the children and all four from Notre Dame took a lunch period to decorate the prints thereby turning them into bugs and animals.
“The children gasped and smiled when they saw the final product and the director proudly displayed it on her door,” Lawrence said.
NDP students Ivory and Fullerton concentrated their time planning and implementing a school-wide puppet show they called “Phil from Chicken-ville, which had as its moral that “you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.”
At the end of the week-long program, Della Lawrence and the four from Notre Dame took some time for personal fun as they explored many of Chicago’s tourist sites.
Summarizing the entire experience, the Notre Damers each recognized the immense needs of teachers in lower-income communities. They also learned from the CMD director that state aid is dwindling for charity organizations and the families they serve.
“Even simple everyday supplies drain the budget,” said Newsome.
“It is our plan to continue our mission work with St. Mary of Celle and bring this back to NDP,” Henige and Ivory told the larger YNIA group. “All four of us will use this as our senior leadership-level Christian Service by involving other students to help collect supplies and make care packages for each classroom at St. Mary of Celle.”
Since many of the Chicago organizations the NDP students worked with serve a large Hispanic population, it is their wish to have children’s books written in Spanish, Della Lawrence said.
“On a future college visit, the students will deliver the care packages to the school,” she said.
“It is our hope that other students will go on this trip next year and continue on our service in that community,” Henige said.
The YNIA mission trip was organized and sponsored by the NDP campus ministry Christians in Action Peer Ministry.
Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org.
Follow us on Twitter @NDPMA
About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." The Marist Fathers and Brothers sponsor NDPMA's Catholic identity and manages its educational program. Notre Dame is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.