I recently returned from one of the most fulfilling and worthwhile trips I have ever taken and feel compelled to share my wonderful experience with my readers. As a Canisius college student we are offered a multitude of extra curriculum opportunities through various departments around Campus. One of these is the Winter Service Week programs through our Campus ministry department. In this, students apply for a site where they give up the last week of winter break and travel to a location and volunteer there. Faith is interwoven throughout the volunteering, but you don’t have to be a bible thumping Christian to attend. I was fortunate enough to attend a program at Mount Saint Benedict in Erie, Pennsylvania.
The Mount is home to over sixty sisters (nuns) who are Catholic and follow the teachings of St. Benedict, a 6th century monk who is highly revered in the Catholic Church and is the patron saint of all Europe. The sisters follow, “The Rule of Benedict”, a basic guideline that sets out 64 rules or teachings that led to a monastic way of life. In monasticism, the followers renounce most worldly desires and live simply and in community with one another. Think of it like living in your dorm but with less technology and more focus on community and living together. The sisters are all very well educated, most of them holding degrees in education and they taught at the various Catholic schools around Erie. A few that I spoke with even were principals which is so inspiring given that in their age, few women went to college.
We arrived at the monastery on a Sunday, just in time for mass. Following my first taste of a monastic style of faith, we were given a tour of the monastery, built in 1910, this building is grand and beautiful, but tasteful without going overboard. We then took a walk through two feet of snow, led by the head Sister, Prioress Anne, and another Sister down through their property which is alongside Lake Erie, it was an impressive view, if not for the blistering cold wind and snow all around us. We returned to the monastery, settled into our rooms, and then became more acquainted with our home for the next week.
On Monday, we awoke at six in the morning in order to prepare for the morning prayer session which took place daily at 6:30. Following a blearily eyed prayer session we had breakfast and made our way into downtown Erie for our first round of volunteering. The Sisters run several ministries in Erie, the one I was to attend was the Education Center. Here, adult refugees were taught English and instructed in trade skills. Erie, PA, is a city filled with plastics manufacturing plants, and so the Sisters purchased old equipment and set up a mock factory in one of their old buildings. They train refugees to work on this equipment and produce parts and when they are trained they are sent to the factories where they are often hired as employers are impressed that they do not need to be trained. I had the chance to teach English to some of the refugees. I worked with a man from the Democratic Republic and helped him to fill out sample job applications. Even the smallest things like the difference between Mr. and Ms./Mrs. was complicated for him as he primarily spoke Swahili. These are the struggles that refugees face when they come to America. We returned to the monastery for lunch and then headed back to Erie. This time I would be volunteering at Sister Gus’s Kids Café, part of a national program, the Kids Café, provides at risk youth with structured after school activities and a meal. I helped a little boy with his homework and then assisted in coaching basketball at the beautiful gym they have. We came back to the monastery and had dinner, evening prayer and a daily lesson from one of the Sisters as well as our own personal reflection.
The rest of the week progressed mainly the same, I volunteered at many places including a food pantry/ soup kitchen, the Art House which is like the Kids Café except it is more structured with various art activities and homework help, around the monastery by helping the Sisters out with their chores, and at a house that the monastery owns which they reclaimed from violence and now serves as an after-school program for children. The Sisters were truly inspiring women. When I got there, I was assigned a prayer partner, someone who would help me with the different prayers and guide me through monastic life. Mine was a total sweetheart named Sister Audrey who worked at the Education Center with the refugees. She was also an avid woodturner, and showed me her workshop, which I and another volunteer spent two hours cleaning out the sawdust and woodchips.
The work that the Sisters do is truly incredible, they bring a positive attitude every day to what they do, even when the situations seem to be utterly hopeless. I have a deep respect for these women and their commitment to their way of life. I had a great time volunteering, not to mention staying in a house of grandmothers basically, sweet old ladies who just radiate love and kindness. I urge you to apply for this program next winter, you won’t regret it.
