The Challenge

How It Began...

During their religion class, last year's 7th grade read an article about teens who built a Box City and lived as homeless people for a time to gain an understanding of what homelessness was all about.  Initially, they thought that this looked fun and asked if they could hold a Box City event of their own.  The challenge for teachers and staff was to give the students enough background and understanding of poverty and homelessness so that the experience wouldn't be "the game" of homelessness, but a real chance to gain an understanding and appreciation of what many people have to suffer.  The word, here, is SOLIDARITY.

The Box City event was successful.  In the words of one of the participants, "It was HORRIBLE."  But she wouldn't have missed the experience for the world.  The students arranged for a speaker from the Regional Vincent de Paul Society, Rich LePlume, to address the parish on the issue of homelessness and took up a collection to benefit the homeless in our area.  In the end, they achieved a real sense of empathy for the poor and homeless.

Challenges

Last year's 6th grade saw what went on with the Box City and asked Mrs. Ostlund, the Junior High Religion teacher,  if they could hold the event this year.  This presented her with a real opportunity.  She envisioned incorporating a Social Justice unit in her 7th grade religion class throughout the first semester leading to the planning and carrying out of the project in the second semester.  Mrs. Ostlund recruited Fr. Beighlie to present the Social Justice unit and he worked with the students for one class period each week. 

The challenge laid before the students was this:  to come up with a definition of what Social Justice means, to become aware of issues of injustice in our world, and to propose, agree on and carry out a project that would address an issue of injustice.  (To be honest, it was expected that the students would end up picking homelessness and building another Box City - spending the night together on a project is a powerful incentive!) 

An initial challenge for Mrs. Ostlund and Fr. Beighlie was to stress the idea of justice as an obligation.  Some students, like Dylan, couldn't see what all the fuss was about.  If people hurt, you help them.  What's so complicated about that?

The Process