Cardinal Service On and Off Campus -

By Maggiemae Dethlefsen

“We are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ – to follow the example He set to love our neighbors, to serve the poor, and to use our gifts to stand for human dignity, promote justice, and help those in need”: this is what Campus Ministry’s service program puts into action through their projects, missions, and work on- and off-campus.

Service and Justice offers opportunities for students such as immersion trips, homeless food runs, tutoring, and Cardinal Cupboard. These are several opportunities for students to go into their communities and help serve their needs.

One example of service opportunities on campus is Cardinal Cupboard, a food pantry for members of the community who experience food insecurity. Cardinal Cupboard offers a way for students, faculty, and staff to pick up bags of food for themselves. Community members can even have bags pre-made for them that they can come to pick up. The Cardinal Cupboard is a service available at all times to any member of the University Community whenever they need it. It is a service that completely runs on donations, including food drives, E-gift cards, CUA’s Community Garden, and service hours at Cardinal Cupboard.

Service is also a way for the University community to come together to serve the larger Washington, D.C. community. A recent example includes the Mother Teresa Day of Service, which allows students, staff, and faculty to come together. The goal of this event is to “serve as Saint Mother Teresa did.”

“Mother Teresa tells us that it’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving, and this call starts right here in our D.C. and Brookland communities,” the campus ministry said.

Service in Brookland communities includes programs like D.C. Reads and Jump Start. D.C. Reads is a program where Catholic University students go to local schools and tutor children individually or in small groups. This program occurs both before and after school. Catholic University students work with elementary-aged students to try and help increase their reading proficiency. Catholic University students also do literacy work in the Jump Start program, where students go to local, low-income preschools to build relationships with kids from a young age to help increase literacy.

Assistant Campus Minister Harrison Hanvey said that their job includes “always thinking about how to help our students form relationships with people who are different than them or have had different life experiences.”

He also said that the service program has not changed a lot, but now that COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, they have been able to reopen more service opportunities, including immersion trips, which are reopening to Ecuador, in addition to other trips in Florida, Maryland, and West Virginia. These trips provide students “opportunities to make [a] community that is more diverse.”

As a community, students get to make connections that expand and diversify Catholic University’s campus, and community service is a way in which students at Catholic University can do this. It is a chance to give back to the community while forming relationships with others, from the elderly to children. It is how students go out and “be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.”