By Gemma Calandra

On any given night when many teenagers might prefer to be hanging out with friends or watching a movie at home, a group of Redwood students may very well be found eating dinner with the homeless or planning ways to best help their community. They are part of the Teen Service Corps, a group that participates in local community service projects.

The Teen Service Corps, which operates through St. Hilary’s Church, was formed in 2013 by seniors Brendan Shepard, John Paul Christen, Matthew Walravens, Maxwell Fennema and junior Natalie Veto.

“We all went to St. Hilary Church, but you don’t have to be Catholic or anything [to join the group],” Shepard said. “They encouraged us to continue in our community service, and so we decided to create our own [group].”

In the past, the group volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, provided food for the homeless, played sports with the mentally disabled and more. Though the group has worked with many nonprofits, they tend to do one-time events in the Bay Area rather than take on a long-term collaboration with a single organization.

Currently, the Teen Service Corps is organizing a car wash to raise money for the group.

“We’ll redistribute [the money] to organizations and projects, for example to get groceries and make sandwiches for people,” Shepard said. The fundraiser will take place on Sept. 24 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Shark’s Deli lot in Tiburon.

Though the group began with a lot of help and guidance from the founders’ parents, it is now entirely student-run, which allows the students freedom to take the project in whichever direction they want.

The Teen Service Corps mailing list, which initially started with only six people, has grown to over 250. The group’s members range from middle school to high school age, and attend different schools in the Bay Area.

According to Walravens and Shepard, the group has no problem recruiting people to help out at events. When Shepard sent out an email regarding bringing cupcakes to St. Vincent de Paul, an organization based in San Rafael that provides free food to those in need, he received many rapid responses.

“My goal was to bring about 10 dozen cupcakes, and so I needed 10 people and they would each contribute a dozen cupcakes,” Shepard said. “Within 25 to 30 minutes of sending out the email, I’d already had to cut it off.”

According to Walravens, one of the first projects organized by the Teen Service Corps was a trip to the Tenderloin, one of San Francisco’s neediest neighborhoods. The group members joined some of the local community in an “Open Cathedral” worship that took place in an alley outside. After participating in the mass and singing with all the churchgoers, the volunteers served free lunch.

“Before, we met up in Marin and made 75 to 80 sandwiches and lunches. After the mass was over we set up a table outside, and everyone from the mass could have a free lunch from us,” Shepard said. “The line was stretching all over and everybody wanted their lunch, and it just felt cool to be giving them all that.”

They have also worked with the Rotating Emergency Shelter Team, or R.E.S.T., which provides shelter and meals.

“At the R.E.S.T. dinners is when you hear the most experiences, because you sit down and eat with the homeless people,” Shepard said. “You hear all different types of stories and how they got to where they are.”
A majority of Teen Service Corps’ founders will be graduating from Redwood this coming year, so they are working on finding new kids to direct the group.

“We’re trying to pass on the leadership to younger kids, and we already have some of that lined up with people that we’re mentoring to be the next leaders,” Shepard said.

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Teens from one of the nation’s most affluent counties took an eye- and heart-opening tour of one of the Bay Area’s poorest neighborhoods to launch a youth group aimed at improving the lot of the less fortunate.

In the kickoff event for Teen Service Corps Oct. 21, 16 Marin County high school students and six adult mentors walked the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, where many of the city’s homeless dwell.

The organization – inspired by two catechists for the confirmation program at St. Hilary Parish in Tiburon and instigated in September by their 15-year-old sons – co-sponsored the foray into territory most tourists avoid with the youth ministry at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Shocked by the squalor and suffering they witnessed, the visitors came away reassessing their own lives and resolving to “help those in need in our community: the homeless, the sick, the elderly, the kids next door to us in Marin City,” said Matthew Walravens, a Redwood High School freshman and Teen Service Corps co-founder.

Of the stops selected by guide Del Seymour, a Vietnam War veteran and 30-year Tenderloin resident who spent a decade battling drug addiction and the elements on the streets he now includes in his tours – St. Boniface Church stood out the most, Matthew said.

The 153-year-old Franciscan “peace” parish provides a sanctuary from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. each weekday for those who have no safe, silent place to lay their weary heads.

“Walking into the church in San Francisco and seeing all of the homeless people sleeping on the pews … made me think about all the stuff I have,” Matthew said. “These people don’t even have a house to sleep in.”

The sight of dozens of blanket-wrapped forms napping on the 14-inch-wide wooden pews struck him more than any other, said John Paul Christen, Matthew’s classmate and teen corps co-founder.

“The Tenderloin was a very scary place,” he said. “What I learned is that people need help.”

Providing that help is the aim of the Teen Service Corps, set up to sustain the spirit of social justice beyond the eighth grade, said Matthew’s mother and the group’s mentor Samantha Walravens.

“TSC (was) formed to fill the gap in public-school education between community service requirements and faith-based service opportunities,” said Stacee Christen, John Paul’s mother and corps’ mentor.

In keeping with their mission, the teens joined the down and out at the Civic Center on Nov. 10 for a weekly outdoor “open cathedral” worship service, then passed out sandwiches they had made for the congregation.

On Dec. 12, they will cook and serve dinner at the annual REST program that offers the homeless meals and a night’s lodging in the St. Hilary parish hall each Thursday from November through February.

At the suggestion of Seymour, a member of San Francisco’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board, the teens will collect and distribute socks and fruit in the Tenderloin.

They also plan to volunteer in the dining room they visited on the tour, donate sports equipment to Marin City children, contribute to the St. Hilary Giving Tree and hold a Christmas toy drive.

In hopes of shooting hoops and reading with Marin City youngsters, the corps wants to partner with the recreation department and Bridge the Gap College Prep, a reading and literacy program that counts Matthew and John Paul among its summer tutors.

While the fledgling group is currently composed largely of last year’s St. Hilary confirmation class, its organizers are developing a website and other means to attract a broader base.

“It’s good for high school kids to remember that there are other people who … don’t have all the things that we have, and sometimes it’s not their fault,” Matthew said. “We don’t plan to solve all of their problems, but we can try to make their lives a little easier.”

From December 6, 2013 issue of Catholic San Francisco.