After spending time with the poor, homeless and incarcerated as part of the second annual Catholic Charities Summer Institute (C2SI), Catholic youth from across Arkansas learned not to believe in stereotypes.
The weeklong program for high school students was held July 7-13 in Little Rock. The diocesan Office of Youth Ministry and Catholic Charities of Arkansas sponsored the event that combined education with service to help the 41 participants not only understand the Church’s social teachings but also how, by their baptism, they are called serve others, especially the vulnerable in society.
At St. John Center, teens heard an overview of the social teachings along with how the Diocese of Little Rock puts these into action through its ministries for adoption, immigration, prisoners, victims of domestic violence, respect for life, parish outreach, free medical services and disaster response. The work of Catholic Relief Services and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development was also explained. The diocese has local offices for these organizations.
The youth also did service projects at five locations around Little Rock that serve the poor, homeless and imprisoned. Highlights included touring a homeless camp, visiting with homeless waiting in line for a free lunch and comforting troubled teens at the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center.
Torie Davis, a junior from St. Edward Church in Texarkana, said like many people, she believed the worst of the homeless before she met some of them. She and the other youth gave out bags of toiletry items, underwear and socks to the homeless waiting in line for lunch at the Stewpot July 8. Eight C2SI teens returned July 9 to prepare and serve the free noon meal, which is offered five days a week through the downtown First Presbyterian Church.
“I learned you can’t judge a book by its cover. Some people are just put in those situations; it’s not their fault,” she said. “They’re people, and we should care for them and help them because one day we might be them.”
Phillip Smith, a senior from St. Jude Church in Jacksonville, said seeing that people were living in tents at the homeless camp was a real “eye-opener.”
“We were told they actually help each other as a family, no matter what race, what gender, what age,” he said. “It made me realize how fortunate I am to have a house, food and shelter and made me mad to see they don’t.”
The Arkansas Homeless Coalition, in which Tom Navin serves on the board of directors, provided the camp tour. Navin works for CCA and co-coordinated C2SI with Liz Tingquist, diocesan youth director.
The C2SI group learned that often the working poor end up homeless because of a downward spiral of events from which they don’t have the resources to recover, Tingquist explained.
Navin, diocesan prison ministry director, also arranged for 10 teens to talk with youth at the juvenile detention center July 9.
Colleen Perkins, a sophomore from St. John Church in Russellville, said she was surprised by how much she had in common with the teens she met, whom she described as “regular people who made mistakes.”
“I talked to two girls and they also liked Harry Potter,” she said. “After a while when I was talking to them, I felt like I was talking to one of my friends.”
Teens also worked at Our House, a homeless shelter and job-training center; St. Francis House and Universidad de Promesa, a year-round after-school and summer program for black and Hispanic children that offers tutoring and English as a Second Language classes.
Tingquist said one of the teens wrote a poem that summed up the week’s lesson: “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but you know what, I love you.”
