Leominster youth experience homelessness

By Hannah Snell | CFP Intern

LEOMINSTER – As the new school year begins, some students can look back on the education they received this summer – from people who’ve experienced homelessness.
Through summer service projects, youth from Holy Family of Nazareth Parish and Holy Trinity Chapel honored Dorothy Day, whose cause for canonization is being promoted.
Ms. Day, a Brooklyn native, journalist and social activist, co-founded The Catholic Worker movement and its Catholic Worker newspaper, and served the poor and homeless, according to The Dorothy Day Guild.   
“As someone who was both committed to social justice and loyal to Church teachings, Day bridges wings of the contemporary church in a way that few American Catholic figures can,” Sharon Otterman wrote in The New York Times in 2012.  
The Leominster youth worked at two Catholic Worker sites in Brooklyn, St. Joseph House, a men’s shelter, and Maryhouse, a women’s shelter, where Dorothy Day did most of her service, and where she died in 1980.
One of their projects was helping restore a chapel at Maryhouse dedicated to Dorothy Day.
“It was so amazing to have the opportunity to say that I got to paint a small portion of her chapel,” said Lucrecia Acosta Larrama, a 17-year-old, long-time member of Holy Trinity. “As we were working, some of the women were walking by and would come over and thank us and tell us how much they appreciate us doing this.”
This was the Leominster volunteers’ second mission trip with the national organization Young Neighbors in Action, said Jessica Valera, director of religious education and youth ministry at Holy Family. Their first YNIA trip was to Boston the previous summer, she said.    
Brooklyn seemed like the ideal location, since it was “out of their backyard,” but “not too far away,” Miss Valera said. The opportunity to work on restoring a chapel dedicated to Dorothy Day was also of interest.
Joined by their pastor, Father José A. Rodríguez, and Alfredo Porras, a seminarian of the Worcester diocese, youth volunteers departed for Brooklyn on July 15, and returned on July 21.    
“My goal going into this trip was to help the homeless,” said Lucrecia. “Even just a smile on their face for that specific day, or little amount of time, anything to make them feel human and not as society forces them to feel.”
“I went in expecting it to be more like last year: people will come in and we’ll give them food,” said Brian Leger, a 17-year-old who has been attending Holy Family with his family since he was young. “And we certainly did that.
“I learned throughout the week that sitting down and just talking with somebody … more than just ‘here’s your food’ – it’s trying to get into more of a personal relationship. Service is not just giving someone food; it’s also for nourishing their soul and them as a whole. …You kind of chat with them, make them feel at home, make them feel important.
“They give you something in return, maybe some insight that you haven’t thought of. All of them had something to give back.”
At Maryhouse, in addition to food and shelter, clothing and other essentials were provided for residents, as well as evening events, such as poetry nights.  
“I loved that this was a choice that the homeless could have – they could actually choose what they wanted,” Lucrecia said. “At the soup kitchen, you either have soup or you don’t eat. But with the clothing, we had a ton of shirts to choose from.”  
“You kind of helped them go shopping,” Brian added.   
The Leominster volunteers stayed at the Jesus of Nazareth Retreat Center in East Flatbush, waking up to breakfast and morning prayer, then embarking on an-hour-and-a-half commute to the shelters, Miss Valera said. The commute typically consisted of catching multiple buses, walking and even taking a train, which meant a lot of waiting.  Miss Valera admitted that this route was intentional; she wanted the group to experience what traveling across Brooklyn to a shelter would be like for a homeless person.    
“I think it’s super important, because this is what the homeless do,” Lucrecia said. “We even sat next to them on public transit.”     
On their way to the sites, volunteers also gained an understanding, as eyewitnesses, of how poverty plagued the surrounding community.
Currently, New York City homelessness has risen to the “highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” according to a report by the Coalition for the Homeless.
“In June 2018, there were 61,421 homeless people, including 14,934 homeless families with 22,266 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system,” the coalition reported.
Lucrecia and Brian found this startlingly apparent.
“There was a park. … At the water fountains people were filling up … jugs and buckets, and we don’t know what for, but that’s definitely something that happens every day,” Lucrecia said. “On the benches, there were people sleeping, eating, living. Father said to us, ‘I hope you guys realize that we just walked through someone’s home.’”    
Miss Valera recalled a conversation with a woman at Maryhouse.  Pointing toward a nearby park, the woman said she used to live there.
“She told me, ‘That one’s not so bad; they didn’t bother me there,’” Miss Valera said.  “I pray that God allows me to remember that conversation.”
The woman said that one night, while she was sleeping in the park, someone woke her up. She thought she might be in trouble. Instead, the person gave her $100, which was “like winning the lottery.”
Brian told of an ineraction he had with a man at St. Joseph House, while helping paint a room the size of a small bathroom. He said the man told him he lived in that room for eight years.
Upon their return from Brooklyn, the youth got to share insights from their trip at Sunday Masses. Brian said he shared how he was touched by the thankfulness of those at the shelters.
The youth also had the opportunity to place themselves in the position of those they served in Brooklyn. On Aug. 19 they held their first “Youth Solidarity Outdoor Overnight,” Miss Valera said. They spent the night sleeping outside in the churchyard, with only cardboard box shelters and sleeping bags for protection.
Miss Valera said she got the idea from an event she participated in in high school. While she hopes to do it again, she does not plan on holding it annually, so as to not desensitize people to the issue.   
Meanwhile, plans for next summer’s service trip are under way.
“We want to continue to find ways to serve that are out of our comfort zone,” Miss Valera said. “We are very excited to serve again.”   
“It doesn’t teach you anything different to serve within your comfort zone,” Brian said.