Service drives Academy of Our Lady religion class

Above: Salesian Sister Runita Borja (pictured at center, with Academy of Our Lady’s service-learning religion class) visited campus Nov. 8 to learn about the students’ community-impacting projects. “Great leaders are coming out of this place!” said Salesian Sister Michelle Geiger, principal (pictured at far left). “I’m really proud of my girls!” (Photos by Beth Donze, Clarion Herald)

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

When students at the Academy of Our Lady (AOL) roll up their sleeves to give service, they don’t simply show up to a volunteer site and assume “the adults” have done all the prep work.

Recognizing that teenagers hunger for opportunities to put their faith into action – and are more than capable of leading such efforts – the Marrero high school expects its students to devise, research, coordinate and implement their own service endeavors, with adults playing a consultative role.

So, when Sister Runita Borja, the Rome-based general councilor for youth ministry for the Salesian Sisters, visited AOL’s campus on Nov. 8, the 17 seniors enrolled in the religion department’s inaugural “Service-Learning” course eagerly shared the student-conceived projects they will be executing throughout the school year.

Teens create, lead projects

“This is a special place, isn’t it?” said Sister Runita, after hearing student summaries of the six service projects they are developing “from the ground up” with their religion teacher, Elizabeth Thaibihn.

In their bid to alleviate the problem of women’s homelessness, Indya Brown, Emily Cortes, Madison Nguyen, Zoe Stamps and Tiffany Tran first identified local organizations that were already working on the issue and interviewed staff at three women’s shelters: Hotel Hope, Hagar’s House and the New Orleans Women’s and Children’s Shelter.

They decided one small but meaningful way they could help would be by throwing a monthly birthday party for children living at Hotel Hope, a residence established by the Sisters of the Presentation that provides temporary housing, meals and case management services to 70 families annually.

After interviewing staff at Unity of Greater New Orleans – a cooperative of 60 local homeless shelters – the student team also decided to reach out to Sen. John Kennedy, who represents Louisiana on the Senate Appropriations Committee, to allocate funds from the American Rescue Plan/Housing and Homelessness to local efforts impacting unhoused women and children.

Environmental endeavors

Two of the service-learning projects brewing in the hands-on religion course have an environmental bent.

Seniors Makayla Phelps and Emily Tran are determined to set up an on-campus bin for the composting of food waste and other organic materials, such as leaves and grass clippings. If successful, the high school will literally be able to make “food” to add to the soil.

“(Composting) doesn’t have to take a large area to work,” said Phelps, reminding her classmates that the failure to compost contributes to global warming. “When food waste is added to landfills, it produces the greenhouse gas – methane,” she said.

Phelps’ and Tran’s research will include interviews with and visits to entities that already have composting in place, such as Compost Now, the LSU Agricultural Foundation and the Academy of the Sacred Heart – AOL’s fellow all-girls’ Catholic high school. They also hope to recruit several on-campus collaborators into their composting campaign: the CRS Club, which advocates for the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching; the Culinary Club and Culinary classes, which maintain an on-campus vegetable garden; and environmental science classes.

“The change has to start with our (school) community,” Phelps said, envisioning food scraping stations in the cafeteria. “We can’t go and advocate (for composting) in other communities if we’re not doing it ourselves first. We want to start the change here and then branch out.”

Another environmentally savvy project has Reagan Magee, Kyra Poree and Jennifer Tran seeking solutions to New Orleans’ litter problem. This “disheartening” plague is exacerbated by poor enforcement of laws and fines already on the books, Poree said.

“I see police officers littering, so it’s not really something that’s enforced here,” she said. “Louisiana has lost a lot of its tourists because of how dirty it is – and it’s not just in New Orleans; places like Baton Rouge have a lot of litter, too.”

In their quest to not only place more trash receptacles on city streets but to empty them more frequently, the group is working on all cylinders: calling on the mayors of New Orleans and Gretna to take action; soliciting the help of a local TV station; creating an education campaign for youngsters; collaborating with AOL’s science classes to place recycling receptacles in classrooms; planning litter pick-up days; and fundraising for Glass Half Full, a non-profit that recycles glass, which curbside programs do not currently accept.

Their upcoming interviews include those with Keep Louisiana Beautiful, Junk King New Orleans, the Legacy Project and Waste Connections.

Mental health put on radar

Three of the service-learning projects are geared to improving mental health services and removing stigmas associated with asking for help with anxiety and depression. The students’ action plans include listing mental health resources inside bathroom stalls, sponsoring a schoolwide “De-Stress Day” of movies and coloring sheets, and filling a designated area of campus with sticky notes of uplifting statements.

They also suggested posting hallway messages such as “Talk to someone you trust” and “Take two minutes to focus on the world around you,” along with tip sheets encouraging teens to take social media breaks, do random acts of kindness, go on nature walks and spend time with animals.

A prayer service for those struggling with mental health and adding a mental health component to AOL’s annual “Healthy Choices Week” are also among their goals.

“It can be scary for people to reach out,” said Mikayla Pugh, who is partnering with Skylar Bayhi on a project focusing on suicide prevention.

Student interviews with school counselors and other mental health professionals yielded another proactive idea: placing a box outside the guidance office designated for students’ requests for help – rather than waiting for a counselor or teacher to detect a problem.

Intellectual, social maturity

Sister Ronita applauded the service-learners’ passion for identifying problems and use of their intelligence and creativity to tackle them.

“I congratulate you all for having the patience to investigate,” she said. “Without investigating, the solutions might work for a time, but they are never long term. They will never make the change that’s necessary.”

When students interview others to gather input, “we realize that our lives are intertwined – whatever is the problem of another is also my concern,” Sister Runita said, praising the teens’ maturity in articulating their concerns to adults in positions of power, such as senators and mayors.

“Congratulations! This is actually the way we should live our lives – with that curiosity about how I can help the world become a better place,” Sister Runita said. “I wish that all our young people would have the same passion that you do!”

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