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Photograph courtesy of Tim Brosnan
Helping Hands: Willow Glen resident Ali Brosnan, a junior at Archbishop Mitty High School, works on one of the community projects in the Appalachia region of Kentucky.
HS program helps to build homes for needy families
By Melissa Matchak
For six students from Archbishop Mitty High School, a week in rural Kentucky was both fun and inspiring as they helped build homes and interacted with members of the small community.
Although at first some of the students went on the immersion trip to fulfill their minimum 25 hours per year of community service necessary for graduation, by the end of the week all the students had experienced a way of life completely different from their own, and their eyes had been opened.
Along with Mitty Principal Tim Brosnan, the students went to the Appalachia area of Kentucky to experience life in a very rural part of the state, an area that is also populated by many low-income families. They were joined by students from three other high schools in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Chicago for a week that included dormitory-style living and bathing in the creek behind the farm they called home.
Students worked to help build homes for low-income families through a non-profit organization called Self Help Housing, similar to Habitat for Humanity. They were up at 6:30 a.m. to eat breakfast before heading out to build and paint walls and install insulation. Brosnan said the students performed a different task each day to build the houses.
The students from the four high schools were broken up into four groups, with students from each school in each group. They stayed at Glen Mary Farm, a Catholic Mission dedicated to serving the rural community through outreach services. Brosnan said the county in which they stayed and worked, Lewis County, is home to approximately 17,000 people.
Other activities during the trip included visiting Comprehend, an adult day-care center for mentally disabled adults, visiting a nursing home and holding a picnic for the local children. Brosnan said the students adapted quickly to this new way of living, which included only one shower for the whole week for each student because the water supply was limited. The trip also included an outing to hear local country music and attending a church service very different from the services they are used to.
"The kids were amazingly resilient," Brosnan said. "They jumped right in and immediately started connecting with people."
This immersion trip is one of several sponsored by Mitty. Each year, approximately 20 students go to El Salvador as part of the Spanish three and social justice classes. The trip to El Salvador is required when signing up for the two classes, but the other trips are extracurricular, with only a few meetings in advance to prepare the students for the trip. Mitty also sponsors student immersion trips to Fort Apache in Arizona, St. Anthony's in San Francisco and Tijuana, Mexico, where students work with the Los Niños program to build kindergarten classrooms.
"It's very fulfilling to witness the growth and change in the students, especially their willingness to not only enter a foreign environment but flourish in it," said Brosnan, who has attended both the El Salvador and Tijuana trips in addition to the Appalachia trip.
Brosnan said the students are always eager to go on one of the immersion trips, and he often receives more applications than he has spaces to fill. He said the students always come away from the trips with a better understanding of the larger world around them and a desire to continue helping those less fortunate.
After dinner each night at the Glen Mary Farm, the students gathered for a reflection on the day's activities. Brosnan said they all learned important lessons and the value of simplicity.
"They learned that they can make a difference and felt a sense of accomplishment in the work they had done," Brosnan said. "I believe these experiences are life-changing for most of these kids."
The students from Mitty will all be juniors or seniors in the fall, and all students at Mitty must complete 100 hours of community service to graduate. The hours may also be fulfilled locally. The high school has been sponsoring the trips for approximately four years.
"We want to immerse the students in different cultures and in environments where poverty is rampant," Brosnan said. "We try to get as many students involved as possible."
For the students, many of whom are accustomed to passing the afternoon playing video games or watching television, visiting such a rural area and interacting with the people in it opens their eyes to an entirely different way of life.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
