Carmel Students to Help Residents of Illinois Town Hit by Tornado

At Carmel Catholic High School, students are used to giving their time. 

Each semester, students at the Mundelein-based school must perform 20 hours of service. The Carmel community is also a generous one when it comes to helping those who are facing hardships. For example, the school held a big donation drive to help those impacted by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. 

"Generally, in all seriousness, our community pretty much responds all the time," said Mike Fitzgibbons, a football coach who is also involved with the school's Social Justice Club.

Still, when 50 students agreed to travel to Washington, IL, on Dec. 27 to help residents affected by the Nov. 17 tornado, Fitzgibbons was a little surprised. It is Christmas break, after all. 

The 50 students—including 32 football players and 18 members of the Social Justice Club—will travel with six coaches and teachers to Washington, IL, where they will volunteer at the Sunnyside Distribution Center. They'll be organizing and distributing food at a free grocery store, and sorting and organizing clothes at another storefront two doors down. 

Fitzgibbons said a football player suggested the trip. 

"We put the idea out there and it took on a life of its own," said Fitzgibbons. He said the idea was shared at a football team meeting and a social justice meeting.
 
"We said, 'We have 50 spots. Who wants them?'" said Fitzgibbons. The spots filled quickly. "If we had put it out to the whole school, we would have filled a second bus."

The volunteers will arrive with "lots of good energy," Fitzgibbons said, and will donate about 400 hours of labor. Each of the 50 volunteers will donate eight hours of their time during the one-day trip.
 
The students are set to leave Carmel Catholic High School at 5 a.m. Dec. 27. They'll attend mass at a parish in Washington at 8:15 a.m. and then travel through an area of town that was hit by the tornado. They'll spend the next eight hours volunteering, and will return to Carmel by 8 p.m. 

"We're just going to go and do what they need us to do," said Fitzgibbons. "(The students are) going to learn what they learn from being right there on the site. I think they'll think of their efforts as being important."