In order to graduate, Fenwick students need 40 hours of volunteer work with a non-profit service to complete their Christian Service Project requirements for their junior year theology class.
Last summer, Genesis Fuentes, a junior on the Fenwick softball team, volunteered with The Women’s Center of Chicago with its Baby Bottle Service Project. The project sends out baby bottles and people fill them up with change, send them back to The Women’s Center. All of the proceeds go toward women who are facing crisis pregnancies.
“They are the ones who assemble the bottles and they send them out to the churches,” Fuentes said. “Once we get the money back, the money goes towards the organization. We have to clean out those bottles once we receive them back.”
In addition, Fuentes and her teammates volunteer every year in late April for the Misericordia Candy Days. The Fenwick players pass out candy and accept donations for Misericordia, which aids children and adults with physical and mental disabilities.
“I think that when you do service work, it gets them outside of the realm of athletics and really lined up and focused on helping other and serving others,” Fenwick coach Mike Marrese said. “I just feel that it gets them out of the athletics and gets them more involved as a total person in the world. That’s an important part of their education, is the service work along with their athletics and their studies.”