Diocese of Lafayette
‘We got to see the face of Christ’: St. Patrick, Kokomo, mission trip serves those in need in Cincinnati area
Monica Schultz, left, and Olivia Lupini assemble sandwiches for the homeless of inner-city Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. The teens are from St. Patrick Parish, Kokomo. (Photo by Kevin Cullen)
By Kevin Cullen (The Catholic Moment)
CINCINNATI — From the Ohio River bridges, Greater Cincinnati is stunning. Its skyline glitters with the glass and steel of the Great American Ball Park, office towers, condos, banks and glitzy, high-rise hotels.
But the streets sometimes present another view. In Over-the-Rhine, a battered neighborhood where more than 60 percent of the families live in poverty, homeless men toting garbage bags of clothes and blankets line up each day to receive a free banana, a baloney sandwich and a kind word. Across the river in Covington, Ky., single mothers wait for diapers, formula and used baby clothes. Seventeen teenagers and adults served that “other” Cincinnati June 29-July 3 on a mission trip sponsored by St. Patrick Church, Kokomo. It was offered by the Franciscans for the Poor Volunteer Program.
“I just wanted to do something for other people instead of myself for a change,” said Olivia Lupini, 17. “I’d never really been with people in the inner city before. We got to interact with them, and to see how grateful they all were. You could tell you helped them.” The volunteers stayed in a former convent, where they cooked, ate and prayed together. After morning Mass, they spent each day among the poor, doing home repairs, preparing meals, entertaining children, meeting old folks and feeding thousands. All week, they gave up air-conditioning, iPods, cell phones, television and the Internet.
“Before this, all I knew about the homeless was what I saw on TV,” Lupini said. The short-term program is affiliated with the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The congregation, founded in Germany in 1845, has served the poor of Cincinnati since 1858. To help perpetuate their mission, the sisters started the volunteer effort in 1999, said Chris Lemmon, program director.
“Our superior general wants us to focus on young adult ministry,” said Sister Madonna Hoying, SFP. “We feel the Church hasn’t focused enough attention on the age 18-to-35 group.” “When you accept something like this, it’s a call to serve other brothers and sisters we don’t know,” said Sister Madeline Marie Hill, SFP. “It’s a faith experience. We want to meet the youth and get them to accept the call. It has in it an element of the sacrifice of Christ.”
The Kokomo volunteers helped eight ministries, including a food pantry, a soup kitchen, a day care center, an adult day care center and agencies that provide low-income housing. Kelli Conlon, family life director at St. Patrick Parish, praised Lemmon’s organizational skills and her development of work assignments.
“The youth were motivated to give, and the mission was organized so they could give their gifts and their time,” Conlon said. “The face-to-face interaction was so important. We got to see the face of Christ in the people we were serving.” One work site was the Rose Garden Home Mission, in Covington, Ky. The storefront operation, housed in a former pizza parlor, is staffed by four nuns from the Franciscan Daughters of Mary. They provide free pregnancy tests, pro-life education, “new baby” welcome baskets, baby clothing, and a food pantry for needy families.
The sisters have assisted pregnant girls as young as 13, and a 12-year-old with venereal disease. In four hours, four Kokomo volunteers bagged and distributed more than 800 frozen pizzas, sorted boxes of donated toys, cleaned a restroom, unloaded trucks, mopped floors and greeted clients.
“Greet everybody. Ask them how they’re doing,” said Sister Mary Joseph, FDM, a pint-sized dynamo in sandals and a long gray habit. Mother Seraphina Marie, FDM, said the habits “remind people of God. Even if they spot us on the street, they see the habit and think of God. When we serve them, they know God loves them.”
The mission began three years ago. Donated food is given to anyone who asks. Typically, between 300 and 600 families are served daily; leftover food is taken to the housing projects. “The first rule for volunteers is to smile; the second is to have fun,” Mother Seraphina said. “We uphold the dignity of each human person. We ask them how their day is, and we listen to the response. We never judge. The poor are no different than us. It could be me if the circumstances were different. Before me is a child of my father, my brother or sister.”
Hard-luck stories are heard, all day long. One man has just been released from prison, and needs sheets and cookware. Some clients are toothless, dirty and chronically unemployed; others have jobs, but can’t pay all the bills. Many of the women are young, with children. One woman, in her early 30s, had 10 children. Another brought in week-old twins. “I love the sisters. They love all my grandchildren. They help a lot with Pampers, wipes and baby clothes,” said Betty Dodd, one of the clients. “They’re great people; very, very sweet.”
“Many stop here when they come home from the hospital to show us the new baby,” Mother Seraphina said. Bob Lechner, an adult leader from St. Patrick’s, said his day at the Rose Garden showed him that poverty exists “right under our noses. We just overlook it, or look the other way. This experience makes you realize how fortunate you are to be able to go home to food and a hot shower. Some of these people don’t know where they’ll sleep tonight.”
“It was very grounding to see what poor people do to get by,” said Tim Brown, 19, of St. Joan of Arc, Kokomo. “It makes you realize that there are people like this in every larger city, even Kokomo.” He didn’t expect to be remembered, he said, but “you know, and God knows, that you helped out.”
“It was an eye-opener in some ways,” said Robby Dixon, 17, of St. Patrick Church. “You think of poverty in Africa, but these are regular people, U.S. citizens, who are just down on their luck. They’re you, your friends, your family. Jesus could be one of them.” Elton Bitner, 17, of St. Patrick, volunteered at the Canticle Café in Over-the-Rhine. There, Marian Brother Mike Murphy, other religious, and volunteers serve the homeless donated pastries and coffee.
“Food and shelter are things I take for granted,” Bitner said. “You give a guy an old bagel, and he’s pleased with that. These people really lead rough lives, but an act of kindness makes them smile.” One man said, “‘You have to have dreams,’” Bitner said. “He was a very uplifting, happy guy. He said you have to have dreams, and hope, and never give up.”
Theresa Richey, an adult leader, met a trained medical assistant who wound up on the streets. He delivers food to people too proud to seek help. “I hope this experience inspires people to take action in their own communities,” Richey said.
Brother Mike, a former missionary in India, said that shelters are emptied every morning, so the homeless need a safe place to go, out of the heat, rain and snow. Many have mental problems. Others are alcoholics or drug addicts. Some are illiterate, or have criminal records, and can’t find work.
“The attitude is that all you have to do is go out and get a job,” Brother Mike said. “Those people don’t understand the homeless.” Although “beat up by circumstances, they make the best of it. They taught me a lot about humility,” said Susan Thompson, an adult leader from St. Patrick.
At the Churches Active in Northside (CAIN) food pantry, Kokomo volunteers helped low-income people make food selections. The pantry, sponsored by eight churches, assists 350 families a month. Director Cathy Graham said that 100 volunteers make it possible.
“I hope they see that it’s better to give than to receive,” she said. “I literally look at this as what Jesus would be doing. We’re seeing people we’ve never seen before, people who have never been in this tight of a situation. It’s the first time they’ve asked for help, and it’s hard on them. They’re embarrassed and unsure. Some can’t care for their family.” “I work part-time, so this helps me a lot,” said Rita Dozier, one of the clients. She’s the mother of five and the grandmother of 17.
Roberta Crawford has been coming in for two years. “With food prices the way they are, it really helps me out more than I thought,” she said.
Another work site was Housing Opportunities of Northern Kentucky, in Covington. HONK volunteers build houses and remodel old houses at low cost. Rent-to-own contracts open home ownership to the working poor.
One day, Kokomo volunteers mowed grass, cleared brush, then cleaned appliances, swept floors and washed windows in a rehabbed house at 1042 Banklick St. “We recycle materials and land, but our main thing is rebuilding lives,” said Kathleen Bell, HONK’s associate director. “Many of the people were raised in the projects. They’re the first ones to break the cycle.”
Kevin Hurley, a seminarian for the Diocese of Lafayette, led work groups in prayer, then pitched in like everyone else. Among other things, he cooked hot dogs at a picnic for hundreds of hungry, penniless people in Over-the-Rhine. “It’s important to get out, sit down, and eat with the people,” he said. “I met Fred, who had lived in 18 different states, and had been kicked out of Covington. It was great to relate to that guy … now I have real faces to put on my prayer list. I can pray for Fred.”
Monica Schultz, of St. Patrick, will enroll at St. Theodore Guerin High School in Noblesville this fall. At first, the mission trip simply sounded “cool,” she said, but she soon saw that it was “a journey, growing closer to God. Lately, I haven’t been as close to him as I should have been.”
Her favorite work site was the Visions Day Care Center, which was filled with adorable inner-city infants, toddlers and children. “They don’t judge you, they just love you and you love them back,” she said.
Codi Williams, 17, said she wanted to “experience something different” and “do something productive” this summer by helping others. After five days in Cincinnati, she didn’t want to return home. “These are people who have had really hard lives, but they’ve kept their faith,” she said. “They’re very nice people who appreciate little things.”
She, too, was touched by the children. “You can tell they are not from great backgrounds, but they are so polite, and the teachers really care about them,” she said. “It makes me really appreciate my parents. I’m thankful that they could work and provide.”
One morning, Kokomo volunteers made 1,000 sandwiches for the Mercy Franciscan St. John Social Service Center in Over-the-Rhine, then handed lunches to homeless people through a window that opened onto an alley. Marcus Salazar, 14, of St. Patrick, left the kitchen to meet some of the destitute men who lined up for bologna sandwiches, ice cream cups and bananas.
He enjoyed stepping out of his comfort zone a little, he said, but his thoughts always returned to a 3-year-old black child he had met at Visions. His name was Taven. Most of the children there had no men in their lives, so they loved playing cops and robbers with the friendly guys from someplace called “Kokomo.”
“Taven came up, gave me a hug, and said, ‘I want to be your son!’” Salazar said. “… I just gave him a big hug back.” “It was an inspiring week,” he said. “Everyone should do this. I look at stuff in a little different way now.”
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