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June 11, 2019 | The Valley Catholic
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
Monarchs Put Community First with Service
By Archbishop Mitty
High School Staff
Archbishop Mitty High School
(AMHS) junior Nolan Cheng has gone
to the San Jose-based soup kitchen
Loaves and Fishes almost every week
– sometimes more than once a week
– this school year to serve meals to
families in need. That in and of itself
is remarkable, but what’s even more
impressive is Nolan is just one of more
than 1,700 Monarchs taking an active
role in the community each year.
At Archbishop Mitty High School,
students are required to complete at
least 20 hours of community service,
but helping others is so intrinsic to the
mission of the school that many Mon-
archs go far beyond the requirement in
their quests to make their communi-
ties better places to live.
“At Archbishop Mitty, Christian
Service is an extension of who we
are,” said AMHS Christian Service
Coordinator John Marheineke. “We
requi re our st udents to prov ide
service to the community as part of
their graduation requirement, not as
an academic or perfunctory exercise,
but rather as a way to cultivate a way
of being in the world. We recognize
that young people are in a critical and
self-focused period of their lives, nec-
essarily so as they prepare for their
own futures, but we challenge them
to shift that focus. That shift helps
them, and all of us in our community,
to recognize what it means when the
Gospel challenges us to create a world
in which love comes first.”
As Monarchs serve others, many
cultivate passions that lead to careers.
Senior Maddie Wright plans to be a
teacher and has returned to her for-
mer elementary school, Resurrection
Catholic School, to help teachers and
students, logging nearly 1,000 hours
since she started high school. Monarch
Jiwoo Song, also a senior, served 300
hours just this school year, and shared
his love of the arts with groups like
the Academy of Music and Arts for
Special Education, Mission Skilled
Nursing and Subacute Care, and the
Saratoga Youth Commission. Jiwoo
plans to study nursing in the future, a
career that will allow him to continue
serving others.
These Monarchs – and many oth-
ers – put love first when they set
aside their own worries and struggles
to prioritize those of other people.
Sometimes, the work is done lo-
cally at hospitals, soup kitchens,
and schools in Silicon Valley. Other
times, Monarchs travel overseas to
work with the hungry, poor, or sick.
Regardless of where the work occurs,
Monarchs realize a world where
love comes first is possible and high
school students can help create it. For
more information about the school’s
Campus Ministry programs, go to
mitty.com/campus-ministry.
Seton School’s ‘Snack Packs’ Serve Clients at Project We Hope in East Palo Alto
Many of the students that attend
Saint Elizabeth Seton School live in East
Palo Alto. They have a keen awareness
for the needs in their community, so
with a grant awarded by the CRS Rice
Bowl, to come with a service project
to ‘alleviate the hunger in your com-
munity,’ they knew exactly where they
could help.
Project We Hope, located in East
Palo Alto, serves about 55 clients a day
to provide emergency overnight shel-
ter; two meals daily, hot showers and
laundry services.
Students chose to support clients
by purchasing and packaging healthy
nutritious ‘snack packs’ that could be
enjoyed by clients as they traveled
throughout the day. Working with a
fixed budget in mind, the students
were tasked with selecting appropriate
nutritious snacks, purchasing within
budget, packaging for distribution
and communicating directly with
staff at Project We Hope to share their
ideas and get the necessary permis-
sions. Each student took on a specific
responsibility, several meetings were
held to plan all the necessary steps, and
together they completed a wonderful
community project.
The students were definitely tenta-
tive when first meeting clients at the
center. However, after a short period of
time, they enjoyed hearing the stories
shared and realized there’s really little
Saint Elizabeth Seton School eighth graders
serve at Project We Hope in East Palo Alto.
to fear. It was a great experience for all.
This service project was completed
with eighth graders presenting a
PowerPoint presentation outlining the
project to the entire school at a school
assembly. Two testimonials were
shared about the project, “It made us
feel glad because we were given the
chance to spread love and help them
with their food supply,” said Marvin
Valdez, eighth grader.
“God said that we should be gener-
ous and give to those who are in need.
This project made our relationship with
God stronger,” said Joanna Maldonado,
eighth grader.
We are grateful for the grant from
CRS Rice Bowl that gave our students
an opportunity to define, coordinate
and come up with a concept to alleviate
a little hunger in our local community.
Making Art from Challenging Conditions
SPECIAL DAY – It was a special day for students at Resurrection School in
Sunnyvale as they received their First Holy Communion.
Saint Francis High School art teach-
er Sylvan Adams has been recognized
by the Memory Project for taking on the
challenge of turning children’s photos
into works of art for the past five years.
With the help of art teachers and
young artists, the Memory Project
seeks to create portraits for children
around the world who face substantial
challenges, such as extreme poverty,
violence or family loss. These children
live in orphanages, slums and refugee
camps and own very few items of
personal value. The Memory Project
gathers photos of these children and
gives them to art teachers who guide
their students in creating paintings or
drawings from the photos. These works
of art are then delivered to the children
as special gifts.
“We would like to formally recom-
mend Sylvan as a teacher based on the
expertise, quality and heart that she
puts into this important work,” writes
Rose Franz, the outreach director of
the Memory Project. “She is providing
children with gifts to last a lifetime and
providing her students with lessons in
global caring as well.”