[ARTICLE_IMAGE]For the last 12 summers, the Catholic young people of North Alabama have combined hearts and hands to truly make a difference in their local community. Through a program called Work Camp: We Are His Hands – We Choose to Serve Catholic teens began serving the community over a decade ago. Their mission? To offer assistance to local agencies such as Habitat for Humanity, The Volunteer Center, The Salvation Army and the local Council on Aging AND to give some much needed R&R (that's rest and relaxation) to regular year-round volunteers.
The 2004 program found 61 youth from five parish youth groups painting five homes and six wheelchair ramps, and they provided service to 14 agencies in the North Alabama area! But don’t just take their word for it, check out the words of the people they served (hey that rhymes!):
Barbara Locke of Catholic Family Services called the group a collection of “great teens who are learning young to give of themselves.”
Rene Gilliland of The National Children’s Advocacy Center said that all of that effort “does make a difference to the staff, and the hurting children who come for help.”
And one of their own, a young participant named Paul, sums it up like this: “I love it when Catholic youth all come together to serve someone in need, without asking for anything in return!”
The young people of North Alabama know that they are in good company when it comes to living lives that Make A Difference. They've seen first hand how one person's actions really affects lives. How do they know? They just got a card from one of the home owner’s entire extended family from outside the area, thanking them for “taking care of mom”… now that's awesome!
And these young people have a challenge for other Catholic teens: We hope you don’t take this as “stuck up”, but when it comes to doing Christ’s work on earth… BE LIKE US AND CHOOSE TO SERVE! God bless, from all of us in “Sweet Home Alabama!”