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Youth team provides more than service

The service projects the youth services advisory team from St. Margaret Mary Parish in Neenah participates in also provide opportunities for families to bond.

According to Cindy Kyles-Werth, St. Margaret Mary youth minister, the 30-member advisory team includes many members of the same families. Bernardine Nitz serves with her 17-year-old daughter, Maria. Chris Laurent reported that three of her eight children belong. A fourth one, a recent high school graduate, had also been a member.

The youth team was organized five or six years ago as a result of Kyles-Werth's participation in the Green Bay Diocese's youth ministry certification program. Its members range from elementary and secondary students to senior citizens. It meets the first Monday of each month.

"The biggest need is for our youth to be heard, for them to become leaders, to be fostered into leadership," she said. "I see so much talent, and I know this talent can be allocated to do a lot of good for our parish."

The team determines the projects. Because it wants "the youth to take ownership," the young people "actually implement what they want instead of us creating a program for them."

The projects affect the parish and the community and include service trips to other parts of the United States.

Service Team honored

People have been so pleased with the youth's efforts that the Youth Service Team has been nominated three times for the Fox Cities Youth Alliance Service Award. The award is a project of the Volunteer Center of East Central Wisconsin in Appleton, Center staff said.

Maria Nitz reported that she and her mother joined the team when Kyles-Werth first started it. "I wanted to have more fun youth events in the parish," she said. "We wanted to get involved and start making a change."

Laurent laughingly said she got involved "because I was the one with the van."

Kyles-Werth pointed out that the youth serve coffee and doughnuts after weekend Masses as one of their projects. They have become involved with the youth choir. During Holy Week, the team coordinates the living Stations of the Cross the middle and high school students present. In late spring, it organizes celebrations for the parish's high school graduates.

Four times a year the team helps out parish senior citizens and homebound with chores around their homes. According to Laurent and Nitzes, this is a favorite project.

Follow Jesus' lead

Kyles-Werth said the team tries to make these days "prayerful experiences" for the participants. "We tell them how they need to be Jesus to these people. Our voices are to be Jesus' voice, and our hands are to be His hands."

The youth rake leaves and wash windows and screens. Maria Nitz stated that the elderly's reaction varies. Some don't acknowledge the youth, she said. Others come out and talk to them. Still others bring them cookies and hugs.

She said she particularly remembered one lady who started to cry as the young people hugged her. The woman told the teens that she hadn't had hugs in many years.

The youth and the elderly form friendships, Kyles-Werth said. Some return on their own and help the seniors with chores.

The youth make up "care packages" at Easter and Christmas for nursing home residents and put on a Christmas party at the Keen-Agers home in Menasha. A teacher who is Kyles-Werth's friend helps them with art projects like ornaments or Thanksgiving wall hangings.

Service trips have been made to Catholic Heart Work Camps, Young Neighbors in Action and Chicago Urban Insight. Bernardine Nitz said she and Maria went to a Catholic Heart Camp this past summer. She felt they benefited so much from the experience that she hopes her husband and younger daughter will participate in one with them as a family.

Keys to success

Kyles-Werth listed several reasons she feels the youth service advisory team is a success:

1. It uses youth to recruit other youth participants. She asks them to phone their friends and invite them to events. Students from both parochial and public schools are welcome at these.

2. The elderly have called Fr. David Koch, pastor, and expressed their thanks for the youth's work. The youth have also recruited them to help with such fundraising projects as bake sales. When elderly have died, they have left memorials to help with the youth program and furnish the parish youth room.

3. Youth who have graduated and gone on to college often help out with events when they are at home.

In discussing how the service projects benefit the youth, Kyles-Werth noted: "They really enjoy making a difference. They feel like they are significant. They really focus on the fact that they are serving."

The Nitzes and Laurent said they like seeing the effects their service has on people. "It's a lot of fun," Maria noted. "It makes me feel good to know that something positive is coming out of all our work."

Her involvement with the St. Margaret Mary program led to her membership in the Key Club at Neenah High School where she was a senior. "It was an opportunity to do even more," she said.

This year the youth services team wants to work at Fr. Martin Carr's projects for the needy in Oshkosh.