News

Global Outreach prepares youth worldwide

By Jaye Alderson
Compass Correspondent

Changes are coming for Global Outreach, a multi-state Catholic student exchange program based in Neenah. But the 17-year-old program's mission remains the same: to help rebuild the church in former Communist countries by bringing exchange students to the United States and training them as "servant leaders" to help meet the needs of their people.

In U.S. Catholic high schools, young Catholics from central and eastern Europe can experience how students live out the faith in a tradition of freedom.

"We want them to see people who are involved at church, lay ministers in any form," said Mary Piette of Neenah, director and a founder of the organization. "In our country, we do what needs to be done. You don't have to ask people. This is a free society, and you have a choice to serve. After 40 years of Communism, these young people take back leadership skills and confidence.

"It's a whole different world to these young people, demonstrating our faith. We want to show them how to live in a free society."

Next year's program will sponsor 23 students - the most ever.

At Global Outreach's annual meeting on June 10, several new board members were welcomed, and Fr. Larry Seidl, pastor of St. Matthew Parish in Green Bay, was named the new spiritual director of Global Outreach.

Board members are: Jackie Ehlers, president, Appleton; Jenny Schraufnagel, vice president, Appleton; Jackie Martin, secretary, Neenah; Gary Elmer, treasurer, Neenah; Bonnie Elmer, Neenah; Mary Lou Betancourth, Waukesha; Tom Kropidlowski, vice president, Neenah; and Carol Catlin, Menasha.

Piette will retire Aug. 1, as she turns 72, and a new director will be ushered in.

"I feel it's just time," Piette said. "It was a labor of love, and I think, no matter what I do, there will be young people involved. They're our future, and I love kids."

Many of the 350 or so young people who have gone through Global Outreach keep in regular contact with Piette and tell of their successes.

One woman who attended school in Wisconsin in 1991 still writes to Piette every week.

"We have had such a beautiful relationship," Piette said. "It's like having a daughter, and I haven't got any daughters, so that's really quite special."

A woman from Latvia, who studied in the U.S. in 1991, received a law degree and then was asked by the church to go to Rome to get a degree in canon law.

"She's the first woman in the first marriage tribunal in the country of Latvia," Piette said. "It's a very conservative country. She's on the marriage tribunal with two priests, so she can make a difference."

When another participant returned to her school in Slovakia, others commented that while most of the students are negative, she was always positive.

"That's what I learned in the United States," she told them. "I see hope in the future, and that's what I hope to bring to my country." She now is attending medical school.

Other program alumni include bankers, doctors, teachers and seminarians.

The success of Global Outreach often is seen several years after the students have gone home, Piette said, "and they have matured, processed all they learned and put it into action."

Piette said the idea of Global Outreach began with the staff at St. Mary Central High School in Menasha during the 1989-90 school year. There was an enrollment crisis, and Global Outreach was developed to market the school internationally and bring in tuition-paying students from overseas. Students attended from Latin America, Japan and Switzerland.

However, with the fall of Communism in Europe, a new opportunity came: to develop a new generation of Catholic leaders there by having them share in the freedoms America offers and then take that back to their own countries.

"This was an opportunity for SMC and other American Catholic high schools to become more catholic as well as more Catholic by sharing different Catholic faith experiences and traditions," Global Outreach materials said. "It promised to be an opportunity for Catholic families, schools and parishes to participate creatively in the new evangelization."

Piette was asked if she would be interested in helping with the program.

"Then I met the students," she said. "I had a full refrigerator, and they liked to eat. I connected at a heart level with the students, and that was the clincher."

Schools participating in Global Outreach offer free tuition to the European students. Host families in each city provide their daily living expenses. Individuals and organizations that financially support Global Outreach also benefit by putting their faith into action, Piette said.

"They are making a difference beyond the borders of our country," Piette said. "We're like missionaries, without leaving home. You can make a difference in the world. Our image around the world is not exactly a blooming flower. The students go home and take back what they see of us as a people, how kind, generous and faithful we are. It's a wonderful way to spread news about us as Americans."

Piette looks forward to more changes for Global Outreach. Each year, a summer camp is held abroad to prepare incoming students for their year in the United States. Several American adults and students attend the camp to foster more inter-cultural exchanges.

For the first time, the camp will be held in the Baltics - July 15-21 in Lithuania. Students from the United States, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania and Latvia will take part.

Global Outreach alumni will host the camp, allowing them to practice leadership skills.

Piette said Hungarian alumni in Budapest are forming a foundation to help in the pre-selection of students for Global Outreach and plan closer-to-home exchange programs for Hungarian students.

"It's exciting to us, because the day might come where, if we've developed a strong alumni connection in every one of these countries, alumni could pre-select the students," Piette said. "You have to have great faith in your team over there. I'm hoping to be a part of that, to help develop the alumni so they can be more connected and be part of that selection."