Students in Sr. Maria Meza’s Theology IV class were assigned a project on suffering in the world and how they can do their best to help combat the evil.
Meza sees the project as a way of giving the students a push to do something good for the world.
“I want them to have an encouraged opportunity to put their faith into action,” Meza said.
The students were allowed to work individually or in groups and were given a week to create an idea and about a month to act on it.
Their ideas needed approval by Meza. Students had to fill out a form about their action and provide evidence with a short reflection of their action.
A variety of topics were chosen among the students. Senior Isabel Buss’s group decided on the topic of drug abuse.
“We thought that drugs were a big issue,” Buss said. “We wanted to do it because we could make an impact on our school.”
The issue that originally inspired Meza to begin the project was abortion.
A few years ago, Meza taught students who were a part of the pro-life club but were worried about the scarce number of students who were in the club or cared about being pro-life.
Since her class was on the topic of suffering, Meza decided it was a great opportunity to try and help the club.
“I presented this project, and my underlying hope was that people would choose the topic of abortion,” she said.
Many students this year did choose to do their projects on abortion. Some prayed outside of Planned Parenthood or donated to the Women’s Care Center.
Senior Emma Asmus and her group chose to donate diapers to the Women’s Care Center.
“We think it’s a really big evil in the world,” Asmus said. “We want to pray for the unborn babies and support women who are going through that.”
Meza’s hope is that because of the project, students might begin to make extra efforts to do good.
“We can learn and discuss all of this, but if we don’t do anything on our part to counteract it, it’s kind of a futile attempt,” Meza said.
