Mount Carmel’s new Impact Week program offers an opportunity for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to learn about Catholic social teaching, and to make an “impact” through their service to others.  In return, those experiences of direct service are intended to expand students’ awareness of the many needs in our world.

Following the successful Freshman Impact Week (in October) and sophomore Impact Week (in January), the junior class will experience Impact during the week of March 3-6. The theme for the juniors’ week is “care for the person.” During this week, juniors will be involved in service projects that address the needs of the homeless, people in nursing homes, immigrants, and the handicapped. Each junior will contribute three full days of service.

Mr. Gregory Welch, Campus Minister and Theology teacher, who organized the entire Impact Week program, felt that the freshmen and sophomore Impact Weeks “turned out great.”

Welch believes in the value of this type of service experience, based on personal experience of working with homeless people and elders in a nursing home.  He is hopeful that the juniors will pay attention to “the stories about the peoples’ lives,” come to appreciate the challenges others face, and as a result, be “grateful for what they have.”

Junior Impact Week  will conclude on Friday with a class retreat and Mass, during which leadership pins and class rings will be distributed.   Parents and family members are invited to join their sons for Mass at 1 PM in the Cacciatore Gym.

Junior Devan Johnson is anticipating Impact Week. “I am excited to help people that really can use the help.” While he hasn’t done anything like going to homeless shelter before, he is “happy to have this opportunity.”

Junior Juston Woodard, who has worked in nursing homes before, is another who looks forward to helping the many people that are in need. “I like the feeling it gives me after I am done with helping them.”

But in addition to helping others, Woodard also recognizes that there will be some personal outcomes from the impact Week experience. “I will take out that we should be grateful for what we have, because they are some people without.”