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January 23, 2015
Tom BurkeThe Gospel comes in many forms according to sources I trust as well as my own experience. Chapter and verse is Thanksgiving Picnic in Golden Gate Park, started 24 years ago by sociologist Cheryl Joseph of Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont. Cheryl has been at NDNU for 26 years. She holds a doctorate in education and sociology from Wayne State University in Detroit.
“The first year of the picnic, I prepared the entire meal in my own kitchen and just eight students participated,” the Michigan-born professor told me. The premier meal drew about 20 homeless men and all stayed for conversation until “well after dark,” Cheryl said. Students’ talk of the experience served as an exhortation answered by increasing numbers of volunteers year after year. Cheryl continued as sole chef for three years when students began to join her in the kitchen. Faculty, staff, and many community members began donating food and supplies until the Thanksgiving Picnic in Golden Gate Park reached current proportions.
This past Thanksgiving, about 70 students, faculty, staff, friends and family members shared a lunch of turkey sandwiches, pumpkin pie and various accoutrements with approximately 400 homeless individuals who live in the park. The activity is largely organized by students now and the meal is prepared in the university’s cafeteria kitchen.
Experiences like the picnic are critical to students’ education, Cheryl said. “They allow students to remove the blinders of familiarity; question that which seems obvious; to figuratively step inside the shoes of others; and hopefully, experience a sense of compassion,” Cheryl pointed out. “I personally think compassion is missing from Westernized education today and, as a result oftentimes, from individual and global relationships.”
The picnic encourages students to be with the homeless as individuals and listen to their stories, Cheryl said. The food, in addition to its value to those receiving it, provides a connection. “Suddenly, homeless people become more than just statistics and nameless, faceless beings and become human, worthy of respect and social justice.”
Cheryl’s is an “action-oriented, public sociology.” Students intern with homeless families, jail inmates and their families, at-risk youth; abused and neglected children, the elderly, victims of cancer, and people living with HIV/AIDS.
“We can use sociology to navigate corporate politics and to adapt to cultures different from our own. Maybe most of all, for those who are not content with the status quo or with the study of white mice being made to run through mazes, sociology is fun. In fact, it can become a passion as it has for me.”
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS STRONG: Like stars in the sky, faculty and staff who make Catholic school education possible in the archdiocese bring light to the entire proceeding. We attempt to thank them all with the few we can name individually here.
St. Peter School has been in session for almost 140 years.
Mercy Sister Marian Rose Power is volunteer development director at St. Peter’s but getting there has been quite a trip. She began at St. Peter’s in 1978 serving as principal until 1987. From 1990 to 2013 she served as vice principal and on-occasion development director. In 2013 she put out her shingle as volunteer. The Mercy Sisters say she has been “the heart and soul of the school, always lavished love on the kids and families and always found ways the larger community could be involved.” Sister Marian entered religious life in 1953 and is a graduate of Holy Name of Jesus School and Presentation High School.
Cyndi Gonzalez has been teaching at St. Peter’s for 40 years. “Cyndi has a deep commitment to the vision and mission of the school,” principal Gloria Galarsa told me. “She takes great joy in teaching her students about their faith and how to put that into action in service.”
Nina Martinez has been teaching there for two years. “Nina is an energetic and dedicated teacher,” Gloria said. “She is uncompromising in her quest to provide a quality Catholic education to all her students.”
Dustin Waters has been at St. Peter’s for eight years and is a 2014 recipient of a Herbst Foundation for Excellence award. “He is sensitive to the many learning styles of his students,” Gloria said.
Our Lady of the Visitacion School, recently celebrating 50 years, welcomes sixth grade teacher Carolyn Dame, “She is a wonderful teacher, OLV school parent and an OLV alum,” said Hannah Everhart, OLV vice principal of curriculum.
St. James School opened in 1906. Putting her shoulder to the wheel there as kindergarten teacher for the last five years is St. James alumna Cynthia Caputo. She’s also a leader of the school’s new Reading Club addressing needs of English language learners in the primary grades.
Email items and electronic pictures – jpegs at no less than 300 dpi to burket@sfarchdiocese.org or mail to Street, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco 94109. Include a follow-up phone number. Street is toll-free. My phone number is (415) 614-5634.