SPRING IN THEIR STEPS

Louisiana college students spend their break at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Watervliet

Father Samuel Ballfiore, left, welcomed 11 students from Louisiana State University during the college's spring break. Students spent a week volunteering, praying, and connecting with the local community. The week kicked off with Mass on Sunday, March 12 at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Watervliet where students (pictured here) met with parishioners after Mass. (Emily Benson photo)

Spring break came early to the Albany Diocese and LSU students brought the party.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Watervliet was happy to welcome 11 students from Louisiana State University who visited upstate New York on their spring break. 

From March 12-18, students volunteered in the Watervliet housing projects, met with locals and talked with parishioners for a week of community building and connection. 

“We’re super excited to be here,” said Allissa Altman, a sophomore at LSU, after Mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary. “It was crazy, it didn’t feel real until we landed.” 

Father Samuel Bellafiore, associate pastor, was thrilled — and a little surprised — that the students asked to visit the parish on their spring break. The priest had met a handful of the students on a Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) mission trip last summer to Lima, Peru.

Father Bellafiore served as the trip’s chaplain, but also as a mentor to LSU students Laine Raley, Sam Carriere, Gabby Brabner and Vincent Giovingo.

“He was just a father to us the whole trip,” Raley said. “He prayed for us and his homilies were so beautiful and he would give confession anytime we felt heavy.”

At the end of that trip, a few students asked if they could come to the parish to serve during their spring break. 

“I was like, I don’t know if this is going to happen but I’m open to it,” laughed Father Bellafiore. 

By December, the number of students interested jumped from 3 to 5 to 11. Raley said word spread throughout the campus Catholic ministry group, and once the ball got rolling, more students wanted to go too. 

“We were discussing why we said yes and why we wanted to come here, and we were just tired of ourselves, and we wanted to lose ourselves in the sacred heart of Jesus,” Raley said. “That’s why we’re here: To know the face of God and to serve you.”

The week was a mix of volunteering with families in the Watervliet and Cohoes community and visits to local sites, such as the Auriesville Shrine and a day spent in the Catskills with the Sisters of Life. Students got an unexpected snow day on March 14 when a Nor’easter blew through. Unlike many upstaters, the group was thrilled. Coming from the South, many students had never seen snow before and local parishioners brought over sleds so they could have a true snow day experience. 

“There was a real spirit of openness and joy about it,” Father Bellafiore said. “It’s been clear to me that the Holy Spirit orchestrated all of this because you can spend your whole day trying to make stuff happen, but all of this happened out of nowhere. Nobody tried to make it happen, it just kind of happened.”