By Ruby Thomas, Record Staff Writer
Many students across the Archdiocese of Louisville took time out of their summer break to make a difference in the lives of people in need. Following are some of their activities:
ν Seniors at Mercy Academy donated close to 2,000 service hours this summer. Ana Adams, a Mercy senior served lunch and shared conversations with senior citizens at the Fern Creek United Ministries adult day care program.
Sarah Bloom, a Mercy senior, tutored students in the English as a Second Language program at Slaughter Elementary School. She helped them write sentences about what they wanted to be when they grow up.
Faith Sivori, a Mercy senior, tutored a group of students in the English as a Second Language program at Catholic Charities’ Kentucky Office for Refugees on West Market Street.
Audrey Wichmann, a senior at Mercy, volunteered at La Casita Center, babysitting kids while their parents took part in cooking and budgeting classes.
Mercy students also served at the Center for Women and Families, the Cabbage Patch Settlement House, Family Scholar House, the Salvation Army and at St. Vincent de Paul Society.
- A group of students from St. Xavier High School traveled to Belize in June with Hand in Hand Ministries where they built a house for a needy family in Belize City. The students collected $7,500 for the trip.
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St. Athanasius School students prayed before a game for charity this summer. A group of high school students from St. Michael Church’s youth group traveled to Niagara Falls, N.Y., June 12 to 17 where they served in soup kitchens and helped needy residents with small painting and construction projects.
The students also helped collect and clean sandals left over from the Maid of the Mist tour boat. The sandals will be sent to needy people in developing countries. The week ended with a feet-washing prayer service where adult chaperones washed the feet of the students who served that week. - Another group of young people from St. Michael served in the community of Pueblo Modelo in Guatemala July 24 to 31, where they built a house for a family with a child suffering from muscular dystrophy. The students also served at an orphanage and nutrition center, where they helped prepare food for more than 100 children.
- St. Leonard School’s eighth-grade class served lunch every Friday in July at the Sandefur Dining Hall, located at the Cathedral of the Assumption.
- Members of St. Agnes Church’s high school youth group traveled to Pawhuska, Okla., June 17 to 24, where they worked with children in the Indian Camp School’s summer program. The group also helped with painting projects around the school, served meals in a local soup kitchen and did yard work for needy residents.
- St. Athanasius School’s seventh- and eighth-grade students attended Mass Aug. 27 before the second annual girl’s Powder Puff game. During the event, students collected food donations for the St. Vincent de Paul’s food pantry.
- St. Aloysius School took a group of students to Milwaukee, Wis., where they served the needy in nursing homes and soup kitchens. The students also worked with children in an inner-city childcare and development center. They also worked on landscaping projects for needy residents.
- Ally Korfhage, a senior at Assumption High School, traveled July 22 to Aug. 7 to Ghana in West Africa where she learned about the culture and worked with needy children in the town of Ho.
- Assumption sophomore Annika Geiser, who was named a 2016 ANNpower Leadership fellow, attended a week-long women’s leadership conference in New York City where she heard from global women leaders. Geiser aims to use the leadership skills she gained to work against the stigma of mental illness.
- Assumption’s Operation Smile Club received the “Outstanding New Club of the Year” award during the Operation Smile International Student Leadership Conference in San Diego, Calif., which club members attended in July. Holly Zoeller, a junior who’s the club’s president, was selected to serve on Operation Smile’s National Leadership Council.
