Sophomore Carolyn Windberg and junior Amber Chambers assist in making paper at a women's advancement non-profit organization in inner-city Chicago.

Fall break did not leave much time for a break for some, and they were alright with that. The Breitbach Catholic Thinkers and Leaders Program’s sophomore students and four junior participants traveled to Chicago to take part in a community action, faith-in-practice service trip. Departing early in the morning on Oct. 15, the group led by Father Wathier, Colleen Kuhl, and Dave McDermott arrived at the Brother David Darst Center just a few hours later, ready to learn more about Catholic social teaching and opportunities for service in the area.

For this cross-section of the 18 students who went on the trip, expectations were smashed and perceptions were changed while serving those members of community often forgotten in society’s eyes.

Sophomore Megan Culligan said, “I learned that there is so much more poverty than I thought in Chicago. This is a place that I grew up very close to my entire life.” The students spoke of how their classes at Loras and specifically in the Breitbach program have helped them better understand what is out there in the world and what needs their full attention. Sophomore Dan McDermott said, “All the people that I interacted with who happened to be less fortunate than I was really helped me to acknowledge the human dignity in every person.”

Throughout the trip, the students learned about a variety of community outreaches and divided up into groups for different experience, volunteering at homeless shelters, after-school programs, senior centers, and women’s life skill training organizations. The service projects were geared toward direct service with the idea that afterward, students would reflect on how their experiences changed them and made them more aware of the needs out there, but also helped them form options to continue helping some of these places in the future.  Many of the participants on the trip said they would love to go back again, and Dan McDermott, for one, is wasting no time. “It was a great experience to step outside my comfort zone, and I can’t wait to go back during J-Term break.” McDermott will return to the Darst Center in January as a part of the Campus Ministry-sponsored service trips.

It was very much a social justice trip, directing the Catholic Thinkers and Leaders back to their first-year class on human dignity with Father Wathier, the director of the Breitbach Program at Loras. “The [Breitbach] program has impacted the way I view Catholic youth,” said Megan Culligan. “It has been really cool to see how developed in their faith some of the others in the program are. It’s a constant learning experience. It also provides me with an amazing support system to grow and learn in my faith.”

During the trip, time was reserved by the Darst Center staff and volunteers to have the Loras students take time out for a “night walk” in the neighborhood right near Wrigley Field. The goal was to have students walk a set course for about an hour and quietly examine what they viewed. At first glance, it may seem like just a buzzing community of restaurants and bars, but looking closer at the situation in the night walk, it became apparent that there are levels of great disparity in this area. In fact, this neighborhood is home to the highest number of young homeless people in the Midwest. “Looking back on the experience it seems that the night walk had one of the biggest impacts on me,” says sophomore Maggie Writt. “By taking ten seconds to make eye contact and smile at each person I pass that is begging for money and then thinking about how drastically different my life would be if I was sitting where they are, it reminds me of the importance of humility and the dignity that each person inherently possesses.”

As time passes and, eventually, these Breitbach Catholic Thinkers and Leaders graduate and go their separate ways in the world, they hope to continue learning and growing in their faith, being examples to others and always expanding their knowledge of their faith and the world, just as the experiences from Fall Break 2009 helped them to do. Maggie Writt said, “Working with people in poverty always reminds me of how much work we, as future leaders, have cut out for us.”