By Jay Dewey
Special to Inside
A rooster crows and a breath of rural air is inhaled as a young Chicago woman sits up from her makeshift bed on a creaky wooden floor. It is time for her to tend to a two-acre garden in upstate New York. Nearly 1400 miles south another young woman wakes to the shrill sound of an alarm clock, the air-conditioned classroom providing cool shelter to the Miami heat. She dresses quickly in preparation for her work with Haitian refugees. In four other states across the country six young women are waking on floors of various shelters and preparing for their day.
Ana Avalos, Alicia Campos, Yazming Garcia, Alex Mann, Cassha Pearson, Angel Pearson, Paulina Salgado, and Shardae Smith of Josephinum Middle and High School in Wicker Park will travel to one of six states across the nation for 7 to 10 days this summer, to volunteer and learn in the 2004 Summer Service Projects, sponsored by the Network of Sacred Heart Schools.
With a 15-year history, the Summer Service Projects are back to basics programs to teach service and community. The Josephinum students, ages 13 to 17, will travel to one of the following destinations: El Cajon, CA, to assist and train developmentally disabled adults; Detroit, MI, to tutor children; Seattle, WA, to work with at-risk inner-city elementary age children; Poughkeepsie, NY, to live and work on a farm; San Francisco, CA, to learn about various community issues and agencies; and Miami, FL, to work with and learn about the immigration of Haitian refugees.
Volunteerism and leadership are values instilled by many area girls' schools. Josephinum, an affiliate member of the 21-member network of Sacred Heart Schools, is no exception. It educates its students to have a social awareness that impels action and the commitment to build community. These philosophies help Josephinum's students (of whom 56 percent are Latina and 39 percent are African American—with over half living at or below the poverty line) to be active citizens.
Established in 1890, Josephinum serves 180 middle and high school girls. Volunteering is a graduation requirement at Josephinum and the service projects the girls choose to undertake range from political to social. The list of projects that are being worked on during the 2003-2004 school year include: campaigning for Senatorial and Presidential candidates, Special Olympics, workshops on domestic violence, and a puppet show for a local daycare. Not only is the service requirement a success, so are the students: 100 percent of 2003's seniors graduated, and 95 percent of the graduates were accepted into local and national colleges and universities.
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