Little Donors Make a Big Difference in Chicago

How much money do you think an enterprising group of 92 first graders can raise for a good cause during the 40 days of Lent?

Nearly $8,000 over the past four years.

Seems almost impossible, but that’s exactly what happened at The Frances Xavier Warde School in Chicago, which is affiliated with the landmark downtown church, Old St. Pat’s.

It all started when Catholic Extension President, Father Jack Wall, gave an Ash Wednesday homily about the poverty he encountered during a recent visit to Brownsville, Texas. The message resonated with Clare Hurrelbrink, a teacher at the school. Building on the Parable of the Ten Coins — in which the king’s servants were rewarded for making their treasure grow — Hurrelbrink designed a Lenten service project in which the first graders were each given $1.00 and were asked to return 40 days later with stories about how they made that dollar grow.

The children and parents took to the charge — shoveling snow for neighbors and donating the proceeds, doing dishes, creating cookie and lemonade stands, cleaning cars and rooms, and more. In 2011 the students gave Fr. Wall a check for $3,800, a record donation.

The students even made a book for Fr. Wall documenting their good deeds. One boy wrote: “Brush my teeth and put my clothes in the hamper without my mom telling me. I made 50 cents.” Another: “Cleaned my room and (skracht) scratched my mom’s back and sold a lot of pictures.” One young entrepreneur even decorated a can and “put it in daddy’s office in New York with a sign that said ‘donate to a (skool) school in Texas.’” He received $176, including a match from his father. The book is priceless.

Each year since the program began, the money has gone to support a Catholic Extension-funded ministry, Proyecto Desarrollo Humano (PDH), in Penitas, Texas. It assists Hispanic immigrant women and children, among others, providing faith-based and other educational programs and supplies. Funding is desperately needed.

Sister Carolyn Kosub, ICM, development director for the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at PDH, explained these funds are used to provide a range of services, including spiritual retreats and sacramental preparation, early childhood education to introduce students to English and prepare them to enter kindergarten, after-school tutorials, and summer academic enrichment programs. “Our Hispanic immigrants arrive with very little materially but with a rich Catholic tradition from their homeland,” she said.

“This is where our people come for help, where they gather to help one another, where they celebrate their joys and sorrows, and where they grow as a community of faith.”

The programs are working. On the education front alone, “The children are doing well in school, some even earning honors,” noted Sr. Carolyn. “Their parents are also more confident in participating in their children’s education.”

Hurrelbrink thinks the project has been wonderful all around. She believes it has succeeded because the teachers have made sure the students “live it every day. Part of developing character as God’s children is in understanding the need to share,” she said.

“For me, just being a witness to the children who truly want to help others, and not just because they have to, is very powerful,” Hurrelbrink said. “Throughout the program, the kids were so excited to tell what they were doing to help; the amount raised was truly secondary.”

As first graders so often teach us, it’s the little things that count most.

Since 2008, Clare Hurrelbrink’s class has been using creative ideas to raise money for Lenten projects supported by Catholic Extension . This year their fundraising will support Cajun Camp, a summer camp for deaf and blind children in Louisiana.