News Detail

Student Advent Project Helps Launch New St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House

3/22/2022

Fall Semester 2021 of The Word Magazine | by Molly Shea

During the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent each year, DSHA students plan a school-wide project to support an organization of their choosing. The Advent project typically champions an organization local to Milwaukee, while the Lenten project often supports an international organization. This past Advent, the new St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House of Milwaukee was the project of choice for the nine seniors who serve in the student leadership role of Campus Ministry Officers.

RIGHT OUTSIDE OF OUR DOORSTEPS

The Campus Ministry Officers at DSHA hold vital leadership roles in the planning and execution of faith formation offerings throughout the year, working closely with the DSHA Campus Ministry faculty and staff. Officers go through an application process spring of junior year. When they are seniors, they focus their work in one of three areas—prayer, service, and communications—each integral to the school-wide student experience. Additionally, the officers serve as models of approachable faith to their classmates with the goal of leading and developing programs to help their peers grow in their individual relationships with God, as they grow together as one Body in Christ.

A highlight of the year for the officers are the liturgical season projects during Advent and Lent. The officers choose an organization for the school to support, develop corresponding programming, and manage the projects from conception to completion for the entire student body to take part in. The projects are always rooted in a scriptural theme. This Advent, inspiration for their work, and the season at large, was drawn from Luke 1:45: “Blessed is she who believes that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.”

“We wanted to focus on the importance of trusting in God and the need for His strength during the Advent season. It highlights the need to give and extend our service to others,” Campus Ministry Service Officer Grace Dunn, DSHA ’22, shares of their theme. “During our Advent project, our goal was to work with our DSHA community, and together gain a better understanding of the issues and needs right outside of our doorsteps, here in our city. We also wanted to help Dashers engage in the Christmas spirit by giving back to others.”

CONNECTING COMMUNITIES

Dunn and her fellow officers spent the summer before their senior year pooling potential ideas for their Advent and Lent projects. In August, they chose the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House as the Advent project organization for students to support through activities and fundraising efforts during the month of December. St. Bakhita is the patron saint of human trafficking and the namesake of the worker house that will serve as a safe, dignified, and beautiful space for women who are survivors of sexual exploitation. In partnership with Franciscan Peacemakers, who provide wholistic support for the residents, the St. Bakhita house will help provide the safe living space along with a supportive community necessary to enhance successful healing.

“We chose the St. Bakhita house because we wanted to help build a refuge for women who have suffered through trafficking—right here in Milwaukee,” Dunn shared. “As an all-girls school, there is something really special about girls helping girls, and women helping women, right here in our own community.”

On Tuesday, November 30, the Campus Ministry Officers presented the project to the full student body, faculty, and staff during the annual Advent Assembly. The DSHA community was invited to help raise funds and collect supplies for the house as it prepares to open this spring. The officers also invited Anne Haines, Director of the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House, and long-time friend of DSHA, Frank Miller, who serves on the worker house board, to speak about their mission.

Miller spoke to students about the two women who inspired the house, St. Bakhita and Dorothy Day. Day started the Catholic Worker movement, living the gospel call to love and serve with those living on the margins in hunger, poverty, homelessness, or exile. Her launch of the Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality nearly one hundred years ago currently lives on through over 170 houses, including the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House.

Haines shared her vision for the house, noting they will engage in prayer, hospitality, education, and connection to nature as they help to provide housing and a supportive community for women who are survivors of sexual exploitation. She shared that women living in the safe space of transition benefit from the community-building and spiritual nourishment that are inherent to the Catholic Worker tradition. She closed by inviting students to live the Beatitudes proclaimed by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, asking Dashers to give generously to the Advent fundraiser, and to learn more about the issue of human trafficking that is present in Milwaukee.

Haines closed her presentation by sharing with students, “God put something in each and every heart here today to make a difference.”

And DSHA students answered the call.

A SOCIAL JUSTICE CALL TO ACTION

Beginning the very next day, the Campus Ministry Officers kicked off a number of activities to support the worker house and other local organizations. From December 1-15, right up until finals, students held a warm clothing drive and encouraged essential supply items from an Amazon wish list to be purchased for the house. Additionally, students made and sold pancakes before school, collecting donations toward the fundraising effort, along with donating the collections gathered at Mass during the Mother Daughter Liturgy and Luncheon event.

On December 6, DSHA hosted a special St. Nick’s Market in the Chris and John McDermott Gymnasium where the entirety of proceeds would benefit the St. Bakhita house. The DSHA Sisters of Culture and E.V.E. (Equality. Voice. Empowerment.) co-curriculars sold Christmas cookies and hot chocolate. Vendors included alumnae Brittany Gusho Wohlfeil, DSHA ’05, of Batter Milwaukee; Amy Kroll Scales, DSHA ’06, of Scales Family Farm; and S. Karlyn Cauley, SDS, DS ’61, from the Art Gallery of the Sisters of the Divine Savior. A number of student artists and entrepreneurs also sold items and donated proceeds to the effort.

In addition to alumnae and current students championing the market, DSHA hosted special guest Franciscan Peacemakers, whose Clare Community will partner with the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House through a shared mission of providing support for survivors of sexual exploitation. The work and mission of Franciscan Peacemakers is to provide a pathway to sustainable, healthy, safe, and productive lives for women engaging in prostitution due to trauma, human sex trafficking, and drug addiction. To support their mission and fundraising needs, as well as to provide marketable employment skills, women involved in the program create beautiful, locally crafted bath and body products to directly support the fight against human trafficking in the Milwaukee area. These products were also sold at the St. Nick’s Market with proceeds benefitting the Advent project.

Prior to the market, Shelly Roder, Director of Communications and Marketing for Franciscan Peacemakers, and current DSHA parent, spoke with Dashers about the work that both Franciscan Peacemakers and the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House are involved in. Roder shared that unknown to many, Milwaukee is a national hub for sex trafficking. The women under the care of the Franciscan Peacemakers often come to them because they have nowhere to turn. She encouraged students to ask how they could make room for vulnerable people, for those in their immediate spheres—classmates, friends, neighbors—that might be in need of loving connections with others.

Roder challenged students to be the actual goodness and kindness in the world, and encouraged them that “we can be this to others when we have our feet firmly planted in love. When you do something good for someone else, you are connected to love—you are reminded that we are grounded as beloved children of God.” She also called students to love as Christ and St. Francis did noting, “to love others well is to look for people on the margins and to treat those without connections with dignity and respect, to invite them into connectedness.”

THAT MY WORK, TOO, MAY BE HOLY

When looking back on the Advent project as a whole, Dunn speaks with such fondness when reflecting on the response toward the initiative she saw from her classmates. “We just unite together through service. My hope for the project was for people in our school and our Milwaukee community to see the need for goodness and kindness. And when we see the need, ask ourselves how we should respond.”

In addition to raising funds and collecting supplies, students responded by supporting the St. Bakhita house through prayer. In addition to all-school prayer every day, each week during Advent students, faculty, and staff were invited to the Mother of Our Savior Savior Chapel to pray the Rosary, praying through the intercession of St. Bakhita for the women that the worker house will eventually serve. Additionally, Eucharistic Adoration was held on December 15 in honor of the same.

Dunn and the Campus Ministry Officers took on a special role in responding to the project through prayer. “Every Monday we would meet and share our ‘roses and thorns’ when we prayed,” Dunn said explaining that roses were their highs and thorns their lows. “Prayer are those minutes that we can let everything go and be reminded that there are issues greater than our own struggles. We look outward towards others and at the big picture; it allows us to have more gratitude and become more selfless in our approach to the needs of others.”

Throughout their work on the Advent project, Dunn and the other officers often relied on St. Augustine’s Prayer to the Holy Spirit:

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

“Repeating this prayer helped keep me centered,” Dunn says. “It reminded me of the importance of the work we were doing and the need for outreach in our community. This strengthened me with the knowledge that I am not alone, but supported by my school community, and united in our shared goal of improving our Milwaukee and global community by helping our neighbors.”

TO ANSWER THE CALL

This spring on May 1, the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House will open its doors on the corner of 2nd and Burleigh Streets in Milwaukee. According to Haines, the house is equipped to open in part due to the generosity and work of DSHA students. In addition to the donated items which included household basics such as silverware, a knife set, a vacuum cleaner, and more, Dashers raised over $4,800 for the house.

“This was such a blessing, because when you are trying to launch a new and expansive initiative such as St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House, it is not always easy to get people to step up in support,” Haines shares of the DSHA Advent project. “This was one of the first initiatives to assist us in this way; it was so invigorating to have this kind of support. And doubly so in meeting the girls and seeing their enthusiasm.”

Since the project, Haines has received emails from students who want to continue to help, and she sees the relationship with DSHA as “growing and ongoing,” agreeing with Dunn that the idea of women helping women creates a natural fit for both parties involved. This spring DSHA will have students assigned to the worker house for Sophomore Service Day on April 12, with additional opportunities in the near future.

As Dunn reflects on the impact she and her classmates have had on the house and the lives of the women they will be supporting, along with the impact the project has had on DSHA students, she refers to feeling empowered. “This only makes us want to look for more ways to make a difference. Sometimes it is hard to envision an impact until you see what you can do,” she shares. “We grew together and drew strength from our faith and our community for a common need. My hope all along was for girls to learn more about the experiences and pains that other people are living in their day-to-day, and answer the call to acknowledge how great a need there is in our community. As Catholics that is what Jesus teaches us, to live in service to each other. It is amazing to see how we could unite together among our differences in backgrounds, perspectives, and faiths, and work to make real change in our world. That is what the St. Bakhita house does. And I think we did that through the Advent project, too. Together.”

ADVENT OFFERINGS AT DSHA

November 30 | Advent Assembly

December 1 | Warm Clothing Drive Begins

December 2 | Collections Day: PB&J Sandwiches

for Repairers of the Breach and the Guest House;

Non-Perishable Items for St. Vincent de Paul Food

Pantry at Mother of Good Counsel; Monetary

Collections for St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House

December 6 | St. Nick’s Market

December 7 | Advent Reconciliation

December 8 | Feast of the Immaculate Conception/

Our Lady of Guadalupe All-School Mass

December 9 | Candlelight Memorial Prayer Service

December 10 | La Posada Nativity Celebration

December 13 | Rosary and Reconciliation

December 15 | Eucharistic Adoration

December 15 | Finals Week Feast

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- The 2021-2022 DSHA Campus Ministry Officers collectively planned and led the execution of the Advent Project in support of the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House, encouraging participation from the full student body throughout the month of December.
- This image of St. Josephine Bakhita (courtesy of the St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House) was used to help promote the Advent project among students. Prior to living in Italy as a Canossian sister, St. Bakhita had been enslaved as a child, captured in her native country of Darfur (now in western Sudan) in 1877. She was declared a saint in 2000— the first Black woman in the modern era to receive this honor. She is the patron saint of victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.
- Campus Ministry officer Grace Organ, DSHA ’22, presents the Advent project and scriptural theme to students on November 30.