Prof. Donald Stump, who directs the Micah House Program and teaches creative writing at Saint Louis University, shares lunch with program participants.

icah House residents Bethany Liefer, Carisa Doakes, and Katy Willis are among the two dozen freshmen Micah House participants who take core courses together in theology, philosophy, psych, and English that focus on social-justice aspects of these individual disciplines. These courses become the academic underpinning of the service part of the program.

n annual Halloween party (right) is dress-up time for Micah House students Anna Kwiatowski, Anna Petcu, and Molly Schroeder and about 200 neighborhood kids as well.

Other Micah House students, including James Meinert (below), lend a wrench at Bike Works, a local labor of love that teaches children about bike repair and safety while letting them earn a bike to keep.

Tim Cosentino (right) is another Micah House student who spends time at the Cornerstone Early Learning Center in the Shaw neighborhood.

Volunteer service is an integral part of the Micah House program, which also sets aside time for students to reflect on their experiences.

Mary Cathlin Sullivan works at the Cornerstone Early Learning Center in the Shaw neighborhood near the university.

lizabeth Waldrum and Laura Westerkamp (above) do some fast dealing in service to a local after-school program.

icah House freshmen Kristen Kettenbach and Bethany Liefer (right) clean house for an elderly disabled woman for their service hours

Katie Grzesik and James Meinert take part in Community Night, a once-a-week time set aside for prayer, reflection, and a sharing of experiences. The community aspect to the program is enhanced by speakers, retreats, and social events program participants attend as a group.

Worth the Ticket

by Christopher Mantia
Micah House participant

I come down to the city to do something nice, and I get a parking ticket? I'm hot, irritated, streaked with dirt and wood stain, the late-afternoon sun is glaring in my eyes as I drive home, and, to top it all off, I got a parking ticket.

Three months earlier, at the end of my freshman year, I had volunteered for a Micah House project: building a sandtable. Think of a sandbox set up on legs so that wheelchairs can fit underneath and you get the picture. We were constructing this at the Cornerstone Early Learning Center for needy families in the Shaw neighborhood. I don't know how I came to be in charge, since I had never built anything like this. But students are given responsibility quickly in Micah House, and I thought that the experience might show me whether or not I wanted to be an engineer.

Despite all my planning, there were glitches. First, my crew of incoming Micah freshmen arrived late. No problem. We have enough time. Oh, the preschoolers have their recess now? Let's move to the parking lot. I'll move my car to the street. Since the street cleaner already went by, I shouldn't get ticketed. Uh oh, there's an hour left and the joists aren't in place! Did you just say the freshmen need to leave early? Would anyone like to come back after lunch and help finish? Thanks, you two. Guess I'll have to build the ramp part at home. Wait. What's this yellow paper on my windshield?

What a day that was. But looking back I realize that Micah House had prepared me for just this situation. The program is designed to challenge the abilities of participants and also help them deal with difficulties. We are, after all, helping community organizations struggling to find grants to pay the rent and trying to deal compassionately with more people than they can handle.

Micah House attracts students with a range of backgrounds and majors. As one of the few Micah House commuter students and a member of a small group majoring in engineering, I'm a good example. My 30-mile commute keeps me from enjoying the community living part, but I contribute through other parts of the program.

Monday night community meetings during freshman year were the best way to interact with the others. These were always a challenge because I tend to be reserved, but I pushed myself to join in the prayers, social activities, and discussions of issues involving the urban poor. One meeting began with a discussion of hunger that led to hunger's relation to poverty and violence and then to the just-war doctrine we were studying in theology class-a wide range of topics that Micah House helped foster. Our evening ended with a prayer for peace.

Micah House freshmen take some classes together, and knowing each other makes these classes different than others and results in lively participation and discussion. For a commuter student such as myself, the classes also serve as an additional way to get to know the Micah freshmen. Reading research papers that fellow students wrote about how to improve city schools and strategies to reduce the number of gangs not only brought forth strong personal convictions but also helped me develop closer friendships with my classmates.

During my freshman year, I also found my way more fully into the Micah House community by performing service. The program concentrates on one distressed area, the Shaw neighborhood, so that students can closely study the long-term causes of its problems. I worked at Bicycle Works, an organization that teaches children basic tool skills while helping them repair bikes. The children of Shaw were invariably impressed whenever I was actually able to repair a bicycle with them. Tyrone's bike was so beat up that he needed to come by every week to have some new problem put right, but he really liked fixing his bike himself. The work was also important for me because it helped me learn how to deal with people in an unpredictable situation.

So what's a mechanical engineering student doing in a social justice program? I sometimes ask that myself. Micah House classes are often difficult to schedule around engineering courses, and some do not count toward my degree. But I am convinced that every discipline has ramifications for social justice, and working with an organization involved in the lives of people in need will make me a better engineer as well as a better person. Building that sandtable was something of a final exam. Oh, yes. I paid the parking ticket. Ten bucks. It was worth every penny.

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Taking Off

by Colette Hellenkamp
Micah House resident

At 5:30 one morning I flew from Seattle to begin my life at Saint Louis University. I had high hopes for this new stage of my life, but my attitude lost altitude when I learned that my connecting flight would be delayed and I'd get into St. Louis after 11 that night. After sleeping on a bench at the Phoenix airport for four hours and enduring a turbulent flight, I was greeted in St. Louis by thunderstorms and humidity. Could it get worse? The university greeters had retired for the evening, but a guy from SLU gave me a ride to campus. Maybe there's light at the end of this tunnel.

I bumped my three boat-sized bags into the dorm and up three flights. I entered my room for the first time-sweaty, exhausted, and red from embarrassment at my disheveled state-and was greeted by the excited, relieved face of my new roommate. Almost instantly, a crowd of friendly faces appeared at the door, and I was showered with a stream of sympathetic questions. "How was your trip? You hungry? Need sheets for tonight?" This was my warm, much-needed reception into the Micah House community and the beginning of a network that has become the foundation of my experience at Saint Louis University.

Our shared experiences-studying all night for philosophy finals, camping out on frigid Missouri farms, marching at a School of the Americas protest, sorting out the realities we witness at our service sites, even hot-tub soaks at the rec center-create bonds that endure. Now in our sophomore year, we remain dear friends because of the love and understanding we share and the diversity of perspectives we contribute.

Beyond all this, Micah House has also given me opportunities to broaden my world perspective. The program teaches us to address social issues by not only bandaging the wound but also removing the nail that caused it.

In our freshman classes we examine the structural causes of injustices such as racism, lack of education, and self-interest among those in power. We then apply the ideas we wrestle with in class to the service we do in the Shaw neighborhood-in my case both at a church youth group and at a shelter for homeless women and children. We put what we learn into action by being a friend who cares about how one child's day went and a positive and loving role model for another who once broke another kid's arm for stealing her CD or through creating dialogue with a third to help break down racial stereotypes. The relationships we form reveal the humanity behind the lofty concepts we address in class.

My college experience thus far would not have been nearly as fulfilling without Micah House. I connect with people each day who are similarly passionate about social justice, and I have been flooded with opportunities for further involvement and education, including collaboration with justice-minded students from other Jesuit universities, service work, and mission trips. I am a member of a community that will be a source of support throughout my life, and my experiences in service humble me more each day and serve as my motivation to create social change.

Now I take off on another flight, this time to explore the possibility of studying in El Salvador with the Casa de la Solidaridad, an educational immersion program offered by Santa Clara University. More passionate now than when I boarded that flight to St. Louis, with more conviction about social and political issues, I turn my attention to Latin America where I hope to find further ways to have a faith that does justice and to keep spreading the love.

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