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| September 5, 2008 |
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Brevard County students to spruce up state parkCatholic students make a difference to help park ranger and environment.
Cara Palsis (L) and Sara Lewis, Melbourne Central Catholic students, and other Make a Difference Day volunteers clear overgrown foliage at Resurrection Ranch in Melbourne in October 2006. In 2005, 3 million people around the country volunteered to assist their communities. PALM BAY | Budget cutbacks and a park ranger’s battle with breast cancer have been hard on efforts to keep Sebastian Inlet State Park clean, attractive and accessible to people with disabilities. Youngsters from six Brevard County Catholic schools, their families and other recruits will come to the rescue of the park, which sits on the border of Brevard and Indian River counties, as a Make A Difference Day project on Saturday, Oct. 27. “Our dream is to help our children understand the importance of working in their community,” said Susan Sanders, a parent coordinator for the project and mother of Katie Sanders, a junior at Melbourne Central Catholic High School. Under the direction of Sanders and fellow parent coordinator Mary Loschiavo — mom of Katie’s classmate Lara Loschiavo — students, staff and parents from Melbourne Central Catholic High School, Ascension and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic schools in Melbourne, Our Saviour in Cocoa Beach, Divine Mercy in Merritt Island and St. Joseph Parish School will participate. They will be joined by the St. Joseph Youth Group from the parish. This is the ninth year St. Joseph School is participating in the nation’s biggest day of volunteering, sponsored by USA Weekend magazine since 1991. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve stood back and cried — it’s overwhelming to see what 300 to 350 people can do,” said Sanders, who was a St. Joseph parent until her daughter started high school. YOU This year’s project is a massive effort. The beach access boardwalk for the disabled at Sebastian Inlet State Park was installed in 1984 and 10 years ago the boards were flipped over because they had worn out. Now they need to be replaced. Strong easterly winds have been leaving an inordinate amount of trash along the park’s three miles of beach. Volunteers plan to fix the boardwalk, pick up the trash and give some park buildings a new coat of paint. State budget cutbacks have limited resources available to keep up with repairs. And one of the park’s rangers, Therese Harber, has been battling breast cancer for a year, limiting her ability to work. The Catholic group and the park project found each other because Harber is Loschiavo’s sister. “Therese Harber has been here almost 19 years, helping people and animals. Through her illness, the Park Service has helped her and in an effort to say thank you, she helped arrange this project,” said parks services specialist Terry O’Toole. Employees donated their sick time to Harber to cover her throughout her surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Sharon Gillette, a parent coordinator and middle school teacher, noted it will be a long trip for the Divine Mercy community to the park. “We are so blessed to have all that we have. To be able to have an impact on the community is a precious thing to the kids. I asked my students, ‘If God were to give us a report card on our care of the environment, what grade would we get?’ They decided God would give us a ‘D.’ We are giving the students a taste of being a good steward of creation,” Gillette said. Dana DiDomenico, a seventh- grader at Divine Mercy, will be joining the effort with her parents and 16-year-old brother Joe. “We’re trying to help everybody and make our community look a little better,” she said. Stewardship of creation is not a new effort for the St. Joseph team. In 2003, joined by Melbourne Central Catholic, the team was selected as one of 10 recipients of a national Make a Difference Day Award given by USA Weekend. The team was recognized for the 300 volunteers who cleared 500 feet of shoreline along the Indian River Lagoon in conjunction with the Marine Resources Council and in memory of Bernard Curtis Brown II, 11, a science enthusiast. Bernard was on his way to a marine science program in Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001. His flight, American Airlines 77, was hijacked after leaving Washington Dulles International Airport, in Virginia, and deliberately flown into the nearby Pentagon, headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense. The 2003 effort was the first Make a Difference Day experience for April Downey, currently a senior at Melbourne Central Catholic. Downey was in eighth grade at Ascension School and joined her father and sister, Rachel, an MCC student at the time. She has participated each year since and is looking forward to this event: “Sebastian Inlet is a beautiful place, but there’s a lot of trash and debris that needs to be cleared. We’ll be redoing the boardwalk for the disabled, too. I feel that we should be doing for the community and not just for ourselves. We should go outside our family to help others,” April said.
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