By Mike Krokos / The Criterion
INDIANAPOLIS (OSV News) — The interactive exhibit hall in the Indiana Convention Center has become a destination for National Catholic Youth Conference participants to buy merchandise, visit booths for information on vocations, and to take time and have fun doing things like playing cornhole or singing.
But there is usually an opportunity for young people to serve their brothers and sisters in need, and this year was no different.
In a corner tucked away from the excitement at the center of the gathering area, four service projects were available for the teenagers and other attendees to take part in.
Theme of ‘transformed’
A theme of “transformed” was featured front and center in the service area, reminding participants that after receiving the Eucharist they are tasked to take the faith out into the world to serve others.
Ally Stechschulte, Georgia Hagen and Anna Honse, teens from the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio, signed slips of paper outside a Catholic Relief Services booth, urging Congress to put money back into international aid programs that provide for the less fortunate. Those funds were cut earlier this year.
Laura Sheehan, archdiocesan Catholic Charities-Social Concerns special projects coordinator, was among the volunteers manning the CRS booth.
“We’re asking specifically for international aid to be restored to Catholic Relief Services so that they can continue to serve the poorest of the poor around the world,” she said.
Aiming for 10,000 signatures
CRS organizers set a lofty goal during the NCYC outreach, hoping to garner 10,000 signatures during the three-day gathering of faith.
Not far away, Hearts in Motion, an international, nondenominational organization, was encouraging young people to make T-shirt bags to send medical supplies to Guatemala, where volunteers do much of their work.
Ava Washburn, Alexa Johnson and Kiera McNally, all high school juniors from the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, were meticulous as they carefully cut shirts as part of the project.
“I like to help with community service-type things, and this is a good cause,” Ava told The Criterion, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
Helping others ‘feels good’
“It’s really doesn’t take much to give a small amount of your time to help such a big cause and trying to help those that are less fortunate than us,” said Justin Momanchola-Molo of the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, as he tied knots out of the strips cut into the bottom of a T-shirt. “And helping others just really feels good, you know?”
Benedictine Sister Kathleen Yeadon, a member of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, who works for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in Indianapolis, asked attendees in another nearby area to take part in a food and security grocery challenge.
“They go through, they get a little story here, and then they try and make that budget work,” she explained, with each person given a specific money amount as they walk through and examine the prices of available groceries.
“It’s just that awareness of how difficult it is to shop for your family,” Sister Kathleen added.
Plastic bags made into mats
In another area, Kelli Reutman supervised young people who were making mats for the homeless by taking plastic bags and weaving them together. The plastic yarn is known as “plarn.”
“I’m told it takes about 2,000 bags to make one mat, and about 10 hours of weaving,” explained Reutman, who works as associate director of evangelization for Catalyst Catholic in the New Albany Deanery, where she supports 16 parishes.
The initiative began at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in New Albany, Indiana, and the mats are given to the homeless in southern Indiana and in Louisville, Kentucky.
A few feet away, Kayla Jacobs of Catholic Climate Covenant took the time to educate attendees about the impact of the environment on people who are experiencing homelessness.
Assembling kits for those in need
Attendees, in turn, walked on a “pilgrimage” collecting items to place in a kit for those in need. Jacobs said the goal was to make 1,000 packets to donate locally for people who are experiencing homelessness that will include hydration packs, water bottles, food, blankets, wool socks, sunscreen … things that will help them bear the elements better.”
At the end of their pilgrimage, teens were encouraged to write a note for the homeless person who will receive a kit.
Elsewhere, a teen made a rosary. A group of teens tested their knowledge of the faith in a trivia game.
These activities and more were part of an effort to help youths understand different aspects of this year’s NCYC theme — “I Am/Yo Soy” in English and Spanish.
Set up ‘spirit stations’
“Every year at NCYC we have about six to eight kind of ‘spirit stations’ where we do interactive activities with young people,” Aaron Frazita, director of interactive exhibits, told The Criterion.
“This year, what we did was to take the I AM statements that are associated with different sacraments and came up with activities, crafts and experiences for the young people to kind of think about and work through the different sacraments.”
So, the sacrament of baptism becomes “I am chosen.”
“They did a lot with water, and how that element of water not only happens through baptism, but then we see water, and it’s a reminder of that baptismal call each and every day,” Frazita said.
The sacrament of confirmation inspired the “I am anointed” area.
Gifts of the Holy Spirit
“They took the gifts of the Holy Spirit and really break those apart a little bit,” Frazita said. “For each one of those (gifts), there is an activity or a game that goes along with it” — like making rosaries as an action for “piety,” playing a faith-based trivia game for “wisdom” and doing push-ups or sit-ups for “fortitude.”
In the “I am called” section, the sacraments of marriage and holy orders — as well as the call to religious or single life — were explored. Vestments, habits and wedding clothes are on display so youths “can visually sort of ‘try on’ those vocations,” said Frazita.
The sacraments of reconciliation and anointing of the sick were combined in the “I am healed” area.
“With anointing of the sick,” he says, “the message is it’s not just about death but that we all need that anointing right within our lives.”
Examination of conscience
Sheets with an examination of conscience were available. Volunteers encouraged youths visiting the area to receive the sacrament of reconciliation offered during NCYC and invited them to lift with their shoulders a thick, hanging beam like Christ bore when he died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.
Libby Berg of St. Pius X Parish in Indianapolis gave the activity a try.
“It was really heavy,” she said. “It kind of made me realize how much Jesus really did for us. And it’s not necessarily the physical weight, but it’s also the weight of all of our sins that he took up, which was really cool for me to realize.”
One of the most popular areas in the NCYC exhibit hall each year is the games section.This year, even that component had a spiritual element.
‘I am joyful’
“We called it, ‘I am joyful,’ ” Frazita explained. “The idea with the games area this year, they really wanted (adults) to be able to interact with young people and be able to have conversations with them.”
But just having fun with the games is OK, too, says Benedictine Sister Teresa Gunter of Monastery Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Indiana, in the Evansville Diocese. She served on the interactive event hall team.
“Sometimes we think that our faith always has to be so serious,” she said. “But really, we are called to be joyful Christians who love God.”
In its area of the interactive hall, Marian University in Indianapolis offered youths a challenge that involved giant, plastic, building blocks and this intriguing question: What does the church need and you can provide?
Adding blocks with messages
After considering the question, many of the youths took a royal blue marker and began writing their answer on a large, gray building block. Once they finished their answers, the youths added their blocks to an ever-growing structure.
Answers the youths gave included: “Spreading God’s love through joy”; “Making everyone feel welcome”; “Service to the poor”; “I can provide more prayers”; “Kindness and remembering not to judge”; “Love and charity. Outreach”; and “The Church needs more people to share their time, treasure and talents to spread the Good News.”
Mike Krokos is editor of The Criterion, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Contributing to this story were reporter Natalie Hoefer and assistant editor John Shaughnessy This story was originally published by The Criterion and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.
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