 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
November
6, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 19Oakland,
CA
Zuni service trip inspires Moraga teen's music CD
Last summer
Ashley Coull, 17, of St. Monica Parish in Moraga spent a week at the Zuni
Pueblo near Gallup, New Mexico, helping to repair a dilapidated 400-year-old
shrine dedicated to Santo Niño (the Holy Child).
As a volunteer with Young Neighbors in Action, a national social justice
organization which sends Catholic teens on work assignments to poverty-stricken
areas throughout the United States and Mexico, Ashley and 15 other members
of the parish youth group, rebuilt crumbling adobe walls, repaired plumbing,
and constructed a clay oven for Carol “Missy” Yatsattie, the
shrine’s caretaker. The group also installed bathroom fixtures and
a new washing machine for Yatsattie, her husband, Roland Sr., and their
five children.
Their trip to the Zuni Pueblo was the third summer immersion experience
for Ashley and the youth group, said Carrie Rehak, coordinator of high
school ministry at St. Monica’s.
Previously the teens helped at a day care center in Tijuana, Mexico, returning
to that city a second year to build a house out of garage doors for a
family, said Rehak, who accompanies the group on their trips.
As so often happens during these service projects, many volunteers experience
a deepening of their awareness as to what it means to be Catholic. It
happened to Ashley Coull, especially this past summer.
“The people were some of the most faith-driven individuals I have
ever seen,” said the Carondelet High School senior. “They
didn’t even know if they would have enough food for their children,
yet their belief in God remained steady. This was a profound concept to
embrace and it really had an effect on how I saw my own faith. It taught
me to be strong and to always look at the brighter sides of problems.”
In photo from her CD, Ashley Coull stands by a window she helped repair.
When
Ashley returned home and began processing her faith experience, she thought
about how great it would be if lots of other teenagers could go on one
of these summer trips.
She decided she could help make that happen through a personal fund-raising
project. A musician with the church’s youth choir and band, Ashley
set to work turning her experience into a creative project. With the help
of a special computer program and a loan from her parents, Ashley, a keyboardist,
produced a CD with seven original pieces of instrumental music which she
herself composed and began selling them.
“I created the CD (as a fund-raising project) so that other teenagers
would have the chance to learn what it feels like to share and work with
people in different circumstances than their own,” she said. “I
wanted them to witness the everlasting trust that the poor seem to continually
embody, more so than many people in our community. I wanted to share what
I thought it was to be a Catholic, a citizen and a friend.”
Entitled “Ascension,” the CD is now being sold for $10, with
the proceeds going to Young Neighbors in Action and other youth service
opportunities through the St. Monica SIENA program – Service Immersion
through Education N’Action.
She also plans to sell the CD to help the Monument Crisis Center in Concord,
which Carondelet High School helps sponsor.
The CD sleeve features an engaging cover photo of four-year old Gina Sanchez,
one of Missy Yatsattie’s children. Another photo shows Ashley standing
by a window she helped rebuild at the shrine.
Sales have already raised nearly $1,500 for St. Monica’s youth group,
said Rehak. For information about purchasing a copy of Ashley’s
CD, contact the high school youth office at (925) 376-0558, or e-mail
highschool@stmonicamoraga.com
