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By Eric Connolly
We’re not here doing all of this work for
someone. It’s more important than that.
We’re doing this work with them.
That sentiment from chaperone Jean
Tegoli of Bigfork was a theme that emerged
during the 2011 Justice Outreach Project in
Browning. More than 50 youth and adult
leaders from the two Roman Catholic dioceses
in Montana, including 10 youth participants
from Great Falls, gathered on the
Blackfeet Reservation from June 26 to July
1 to share in service, outreach and cultural
education through Justice Outreach, now in
its third year. They worked alongside youth
and adult members of Little Flower Parish
in Browning.
Dakota Running Crane, a youth participant
and Little Flower parishioner, talked
about the importance of working alongside
Browning residents.
“There are a lot of people who have no
idea who Native Americans are,” Running
Crane said. “It was cool that they got to see
our ways, and to see Jesus through our eyes.”
Work projects included repainting the
Medicine Bear Shelter, which serves people
who are homeless; yard work at private
homes; and cemetery improvement.
Participants were introduced to Blackfeet
culture through the
raising of a tipi lodge;
traditional Indian
games; oral history and
stories told by tribe elders;
and a community
feed night that drew
homeless people to a
vacant site, near De
LaSalle Blackfeet
School, for a free dinner
and for fellowship.
Teen Gabi Eodice, a
member of St. Mary
Parish and a student at St. Andrew School,
both in Helena, talked about the community
involvement fostered by Justice Outreach.
“Being with the community was the
best,” Eodice said. “Just to see their faces
and hear their story was really cool.” She
said praying with people in Browning was
powerful.
“We all came out to serve the community,
but what really happens through the
course of this week is that we build friendships
and form relationships,” said Jens
Bolstad III, a youth participant from Our
Lady of the Valley Parish in Helena. He
participated in Justice Outreach Project for
the second time and said
that “it’s surprising how
strong the bonds are.
They stick.”
The importance of
the week’s labor and
solidarity, of working
with someone and not
simply for them, was
not lost on the participants.
From its inception
three years ago, the
project never was
meant to be in the style
of the typical “painting houses and raking
yards mission trip,” said Doug Tooke, coordinator
of the Diocese of Helena’s Office
of Youth and Young Adult Ministry.
“We wanted to have a week of fellowship,
rooted in the themes of Catholic social
teaching, that had a direct and strong connection
to our mission as a diocese,” Tooke
said. “I think what we got with JOP, the relationships
that these youth and adults form
with their Blackfeet brothers and sisters, is
more than we expected and such a great
work of the spirit.”
Interviewed after a day spent pulling
weeds at a baseball field, distributing food
and conversing with community members,
Eodice summed up her Justice Outreach
Project experience this way: “I learned
about being accepting of people. It’s not really
like anything I expected. It’s better than
I expected.”
Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 27, No. 7, July 15, 2011.
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