Service Categories

• Homeless: Saint Vincent’s or comparable society; a focus on getting the homeless access to clothes, goods, materials; Habitat for Humanity
• Those in Need: Work in some aspect with assisting special needs/physically disabled children or adults; pregnancy centers for anti-abortion work; addiction centers; suicide prevention centers; orphanages; etc.
• Sick: hospitals; home bound; fundraising for disease research, etc.
• Hungry: Food banks; soup kitchens; etc
• Elderly: Nursing Home; Shut ins; hospice
• Development of the human person: Teaching music; dance; art; chess; sports; culture; volunteering at a museum or local historic location; Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts (Some students do work in this category and I didn’t want to take it away from them)
• School: Assisting Cardinal Mooney in a way that is deemed helpful. Approval needed by the principal and sponsored by either principal or a teacher
• Creation: A nature park; a shelter for animals; a vet clinic; River/Lake clean up. Something for the good of Creation. Must be through an agency. Can’t just say “I cleaned up trash/plant flowers for a few hours”
• International: Help an international charity; help a foreign exchange student; help an international issue
• Church: Helping a Catholic church or parish in any way that they feel is useful. Such as: cleaning; decorating; physical labor; evangelization help; Sunday school help; Doing something to prepare for/ clean up after/execute a Church worship service: cleaning; decorating; altar serving; reading at a church
• Inspired: Student may submit alternative forms of service for approval that they feel they are called to do.

In addition to the official list, we also greatly encourage students to consider service in areas that are important to many people such as Pro-Life from conception to death; ecological issues that honor our Creator by protecting God’s handiwork; protecting and enriching the lives of animals; fundraising for medical research; the development of the human person through music, dance and art; etc.

Please choose at least 3 categories for service to divide your service hours in as equally as possible. The last category is “inspired”. If you feel inspired to do something that I did not think of, feel free to ask me and the CMC staff will discern if it is acceptable or not.

The biggest difference from last year is the elimination of the “home” category. I feel very strongly that “chores” or something that every person should do as a loyal member of their family. This is not something that they should get “special credit” for. Furthermore, in the Bible, our Lord Jesus challenged us to think bigger and said that it is easy for us to to good for those who do good to us. It’s a part of being a good family member. Therefore, we encourage our students to go beyond their immediate family units and go beyond into helping other members of the human race.