Helping a Region, Changing the World

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ All teenagers value their summer vacations, it is a proven fact. A fact which makes it all the more impressive that 12 teens dedicated a week of their summer vacation to helping others.

From July 26 to August 2, teens from the St. Bruno's Youth Group in Pinckneyville, along with three volunteers, traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, to help the handicapped and the elderly.

St. Bruno's runs fundraisers all year saving for the trip which costs $800 per person. With numbers ranging from 12 to 26, the youth group has gone to Mishawaka, Ind., South Bend, Ind., and Milwaukee, Wis., in the past.

Participants included Adrian Pitts, Judi Hoffmeister, Eli Opp, Zach Elliott, Kristina Brehm, Ashley Beaty, Breanna Crews, Cammi Russino, Beth Ann Steele, Preston Chapman, Cathy Chapman, Hannah Travis, Don Opp, Lauren Kania and Cathy Pyatt.

The youth group helped in a number of activities that included building handicap ramps, landscaping and yardwork for the elderly, helping to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, working at the YMCA and YWCA, fixing 6,000 lunches a day for children from low income families and working for underfunded school systems by helping paint bleachers and perform other duties.

The group helped more than just the Charleston region. A group in Charleston has developed quick, efficient and easy to transport method to provide clean water treatment systems to third world countries. The youth group helped them to make filters for the system during their stay in Charleston. The filters they helped make would be used in water treatment systems in Africa, Guatamala, Ethiopia and several other countries in need.

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