'Everyday person' volunteered to help NYC's youngest moms

Miss Philips grew up in rural Lake Luzerne, attending Holy Infancy Church. But she spent last year on the teeming streets of New York City, surrounded by teens thrown away by their families and society.

For 13 months, the 22-year-old was a Faith Community volunteer for Covenant House, the shelter for troubled adolescents.

Living the life

"I met hundreds of kids who had been completely rejected by their families and their boyfriends, and were left with no form of support," she said.

Families, she said, truly threw away these girls. "On Christmas Eve, a 16-year-old girl and her two-month-old son were dropped off at the Covenant House Crisis Center by her parents," she recalled. "They told her they didn't want her around anymore. I have never seen so much pain in the eyes of a child."

A place to live

She also found the city's social service programs lacking. If an agency determined that a distant relative had space on their floor for the mother and child to sleep, they were ineligible for housing assistance, Miss Philips said.

Welfare reforms required these mothers to work. However, they had no daycare options and no family members to watch the children. "The bureaucracy was hard to deal with," she said.

God's work

"It was a weird sensation," she said. "I knew from the beginning that I was going to do it. I never saw myself as being someone who could work with teenagers, but I was good at it. It's the theory of God's plan. Things that happened to me weren't coincidence."

Her work led her to decide to pursue a master's degree in social work. Once she completes it, she hopes to move downstate to assist in the creation of transitional programs for young mothers. When she's not attending school she serves as a relief worker at Community Maternity Services, an agency of Albany diocesan Catholic Charities.

Growing spiritually

"Thirteen months in community is a time of spiritual growth," she said.

Although community members worked different shifts, they were committed to praying together for a half-hour each day. Often, that meant waking up at 5:30 a.m. or staying up until midnight in order to be together as a group.

Each Wednesday was Community Night, which included Mass, dinner, and community activities or outings. During the 13-month period, the community also went on retreats together.

Blessings

"It made me see how lucky I was," she said. "All of this material stuff didn't matter. They wanted a home and a family to care. I've had great Christmases my whole life, so it was excellent for me to not have a family Christmas experience. The kids taught me so much. Mostly, they taught me how lucky I am to have spent my whole life surrounded by people who love me."

The experience, while positive, was filled with challenges. "Some days were so hard I didn't think that I could go back," she said. "But I always did."

At first, she had hoped to make a difference for all of the teens she encountered. "Then I realized I couldn't help them all, but I could help some.

"I am not a heroine," she added. "I am an everyday person. I grew up in Hadley-Luzerne. I lived my whole life in a small town. Then one day, floating on a wing and a prayer, I found myself in one of the biggest cities in the world, loving people that I never would have even known had I not chosen to listen to God and take a risk."

(For more information on the Covenant House Faith Community volunteers, contact Alan Blalock, 212-727-4971, or visit www.covenanthouse.org.)

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