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The student-athletes at Cardinal Stritch High School found a higher calling this
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Cardinal Stritch senior Murphy Mahoney, facing
the camera, gets help from another student in
moving furniture to the Oregon’s Kateri campus.
(Photo courtesy of Emily Barry, Vice President of
Advancement, Kateri Catholic School System) |
summer.
The youths volunteered their time to help paint, move furniture and perform other tasks in order to help Stritch and the Kateri Catholic Academy get ready for the 2010-11 school year, which begins Aug. 16.
“We have had over 1,700 volunteer hours since June 1 in order to get this place ready to go for the first day of school,” said Fr. Eric Schild, the new president of Kateri Catholic School System, which includes Cardinal Stritch and the Kateri Catholic Academy.
Stritch athletic director and head football coach Joe Gutilla said Fr. Schild approached him about a month ago to see if some of his players would volunteer during the summer.
“He asked if the football team needed some extra weightlifting work, and I told him we could always use that,” Gutilla said. “When he took the job as the new president, he met with all the athletic coaches. One of his goals was to get as many of the athletes involved and prepared for the school year as possible. A lot of the coaches made sure they enlisted the help of their players. The football team, numbers-wise, is doing it more as a team endeavor.”
Gutilla said 20 to 25 the Cardinals football players helped move furniture from St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School on the East Side and St. Jerome School in Walbridge to the Cardinal Stritch campus on Pickle Road. They also helped paint the Sister Rose Angela Education Center, located behind the Stritch building.
“They painted a bunch of things in the education center,” said Gutilla, who gave the players a week off before beginning double sessions Aug. 2. The Cardinals open the 2010 season Aug. 27 at Fremont St. Joe.
“Off and on during the summer, we’ve had kids helping out,” Gutilla said. “We had probably at least a dozen boys helping out over the entire summer. I basically told them ‘the school is changing; it’s your school. We want you to be in school on Aug. 16 and have the school looking nice. We want you to be proud of the school, and a good way to do that is to take part in making it look good.’
“We lifted weights four days a week at around 8 in the morning until 10. When we were done, some of the kids — about a half dozen or a dozen boys - would do this and that, whether it was moving something or cleaning something or painting. Just light work helping move stuff. The boys did a lot of painting in the Sister Rose Angela Education Center. The following week, for two weeks, we helped move all of the furniture and things like that, desks and things, from the elementary schools.”
Gutilla said other Stritch athletes, including girls from the volleyball and basketball teams, also helped out over the summer.
“It’s been an athletic department endeavor,” he said. “It’s been a pretty good deal. We think we’re still going to get in there Aug. 16, but there’s still a lot of work to do at the school.”
Gutilla added that he was encouraged by what he saw from members of the football team.
“I didn’t have to pull teeth for them to do this,” he said. “The kids all said we’ll help, whatever it takes. Right now, the chemistry with this group is very exciting. This group looks like it is starting to pull together. Our coaches are pretty excited about this group.”
Father Schild said that when he arrived in late June, he realized the scope of the work that still needed to be done before the start of the school year. He said the students do not receive school credit for their volunteer work.
We do have service hours,” he said, “but what they did was instead of go to weightlifting, they helped us out by doing some other manual labor. They began by painting the Sister Rose Angela Education Center, which is going to house some administrative offices as well as the whole music department of the elementary and the high school. Every room needed to be repainted. The football team came in and knocked out a first coat on a lot of it. Mainly they were on the first floor.
“They spent two days in there, and on day three, they helped move books and shelves and desks from St. Thomas Aquinas School to the Oregon campus. They put in three good days of good manual labor in order for our school system be ready for Aug. 16,” he said.
Fr. Schild said there is still work to be done, and more volunteers are still needed.
“We are still in process of getting the building ready to go,” he said. “Teachers are in their classrooms putting things away, and there is still painting and a number of things still being done. The gym floor was just redone.
“There’s a lot happening. A number of students helped this summer, and that shows their commitment and dedication,” he said.
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