Mississippi service project left Catholic school duo eager to do more

By KATE BLAIN- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

Anne Semenoff and Anna Sullivan are used to doing service work; it's part of the curriculum for the seniors at the Academy of the Holy Names in Albany.

But when the pair agreed to spend an entire month this past summer as volunteer teachers with the "Shared Mission" program in Jonestown, Mississippi, they admitted to feeling a little nervous.

"We thought it was going to be, like, two weeks," Anna told The Evangelist. A month away from home in the African-American township of Jonestown, one of the poorest areas in the Mississippi Delta, sounded like a very long time.

Today, the seniors believe it wasn't long enough.

Delta-bound

Anna and Anne first heard about the trip through Holy Names' Service Club, for which they act as class representatives. The teens had already served Thanksgiving dinner at the Equinox and worked on holiday projects to help the needy, but this time, school president Sister Constance Casey, SNJM, offered them the chance to try the Shared Mission program.

Run by the Sisters of the Holy Names, the Shared Mission program is a summer ministry for Jonestown children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Teaching, tutoring, field trips and softball games are available for about 100 children. (The area's population is about 1,400.)

When Anne and Anna heard about it, "we were really excited," said the former. "It was an opportunity we couldn't give up."

Soon, the pair were getting off a plane in Mississippi and meeting a half-dozen other student volunteers from Seattle and Los Angeles.

Fun and educational

Anna became a Spanish teacher, assigning her students Spanish names and working on conversational skills.

"We just had fun with it," she remembered. "Jonestown is such a vocal place; conversation really flowed."

Anne worked across the street in the program's learning center, helping out with a kindergarten class and giving swimming lessons from her experience as a lifeguard. The pair also helped with role-playing and other exercises to teach their students anger management.

"These kids -- they're so angry!" Anna noted. "I can't even imagine what they go through. Almost all of them take their mother's last name because the father's not around. They're angry and confused -- and so smart."

Affectionate

A lot of their work, she said, was just "opening these kids up. This one kid, Preston, just became our buddy. Everywhere we went, he tagged along. He never showed an ounce of sadness. The day we left, he just broke down and cried."

The teens discovered how starved for affection their students were.

"They all needed so much attention," Anna said. When the children crowded in for hugs, "they pushed each other off us."

Old for age

Some of what they learned was through observation. After noticing that girls their own age were rarely seen around town, Anna and Anne discovered that the girls were acting as mothers to their siblings and didn't have time to play.

"They're so much older than their age," the pair noted. "They're 12 and act like they're 17." The volunteers often had trouble figuring out how old their students actually were -- especially since most of the children in the program were a year or two behind in school.

"The educational system down there is a wreck," Anne observed. "They just racially integrated the schools in the '70s."

Racism

During their month of service, the teens did deal with racism, although it wasn't directed at them. Instead, their students were required to alternate between using two different swimming pools in town -- because the people who owned the pools wanted to drain and refill them after each time the children swam there.

"You just look at these people with such awe" for living despite such treatment, said Anna. "We were never once looked down upon. From day one, there was no discussion of white or black."

As the program continued, the pair helped organize a "field day" for the children, holding water balloon fights and relay races. The children became so familiar with the volunteers that they would cheerfully pop their heads in to say "hi" to "teachers" still in their pajamas in the morning, since the volunteers' bedrooms were in the same building as the classrooms.

Anna and Anne also developed an entourage when they went running together every night --though sometimes, the camaraderie was marred by the sight of houses with sheets serving as front doors. The teens knew several families lived in each house.

Sad to leave

BY the end of the month, the pair said their service didn't seem like work.

"It got to the point where you were counting every moment with these kids," said Anna. "We wanted to stay longer. My parents started worrying because I said I never wanted to come home!"

On their last day, the program held an end-of-summer ceremony. The students staged skits about what they'd learned, gave letters to the volunteers and played a final basketball game. Anna and Anne got into the van that would take them to the airport and began to cry.

"Hours later, we were back home, and we wanted to be back in Jonestown," said Anne.

"I was eating with my mother and father [and siblings], and thinking about the kids down there with nothing to do," Anna remembered.

Still in touch

Sadly, the teens found out that two of their students recently lost their homes to a fire caused by drought. But the pair immediately re-started their service work, holding a t-shirt drive at Holy Names that gathered eight huge boxes of clothing to send to Mississippi.

That's not all: Anna and Anne are also planning to go back to Jonestown.

"We definitely want to go back," Anne stated. "How can we explain this to people? They cared about what we were doing, but they couldn't relate to how we felt when we left."

"With all the stuff that goes on in their lives, they are the most amazing kids," said Anna. "We will never forget them."

Today, Anna and Anne are planning for college. Neither is sure what her career will be, but not surprisingly, both have one criterion for their college choice. Said Anna: "We both want a strong service program."

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