Elizabeth Gacs (left) and Bobby Kennedy (center) work with other teens to fill food pouches at Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville. Their work was part of a 50-member crew from St. Joseph Parish in Libertyville who spent a week of their summer vacation volunteering at nonprofit agencies in the area. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

Bella Legg and Hannah Wulf were part of the crew in charge of product labeling at a Feed My Starving Children workday due to allergies.

“Hannah is allergic to soy and I’m allergic to being without Hannah,” Legg joked as the two teens labeled food pouches, along with friend Samantha Washika.

The teens from St. Joseph Parish in Libertyville were part of a 50-member crew who spent a week of their summer vacation volunteering at local nonprofits. From building and assembling beds to painting pasture fences, the youths from St. Joe’s Helping in Neighborhoods Everywhere worked to make an impact.

“It’s super fun to know that you’re helping other people in the community and making a difference in their lives,” Elizabeth Gacs said while she and other teens filled food pouches Friday, July 12 at Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville.

The Mundelein teen said her favorite part of the volunteer week was inspecting, sorting and packaging food at the Northern Illinois Food Bank in Lake Forest.

“You see so many people coming in and you know it’s making a difference for them because they might not have a meal that night or the next day,” Gacs said.

The teens’ week of work included stints at:

• Equestrian Connection in Lake Forest, a charity providing equine-assisted therapy to improve the
  

  Ruby Feinendegen of Mundelein seals pouches during the St. Joe’s Helping in Neighborhood Everywhere workday at Feed Me Starving Children. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

  physical, mental and emotional well-being of children and adults with special needs.

• The Northern Illinois Food Bank, ensuring meals get to individuals in need
• Joseph Parish Bed Ministry, which provides free beds for children whose families can’t afford them. The parish started the ministry in 2018 and has donated more than 2,000 beds to kids in Lake, McHenry, Kane, Cook, DuPage and Boone counties, as well as Walworth County, Wisconsin.
• Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville, packing meals for children around the world in need of food.

Abby Daniels, SHINE leader and communications coordinator for St. Joseph Parish, said the local service week for seventh-graders through high school-age youths is to build community, grow in faith and serve others.

“It’s good for them to spend a week serving and giving back to the community and the parish, showing the people Jesus’ love and growing in their faith,” Daniels said.

Part of the program’s structure was that youths committed to being at projects the entire week.

Daniels said the program cap of 50 was reached just weeks after opening registration in February. She hopes the program can expand to even a higher cap next year.

She hoped the week of volunteering was educational for the teens.

St. Joseph Parish teens (from left) Hannah Wulf, Samantha Washika and Bella Legg work to label food pouches. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

“I hope they learn that serving others is fun and a good thing to do. A lot of them have done service projects before that were required or they had to do for school or because they needed service hours for something,” Daniels said. “My personal goal with SHINE is to show them that service is fun, it’s good things to do, it’s not just to meet the requirements. You can do it during the summer. You can do it with friends. You can do it and have fun doing it, not just be there to fulfill whatever requirements.

“I hope they can come back and just continue to serve. We tried to introduce them to different organizations in the community that they can help out with year-round. Every service place is still in need of volunteers today and every day.”

The program in its fifth year and has been at its cap for two consecutive years.

In the product-labeling area, Bella Legg of Libertyville said she volunteered to be part of the solution.

“Online you see all these kids making a difference and I’m on my couch and I’m just looking at these people who are making a difference and I’m like ‘I should make a difference,’ so I decided to join SHINE.”

Samantha Washika of Vernon Hills said spending the week volunteering gave her an inside look at charitable organizations.

“Even though you might not be able to go to Six Flags or something like that (by volunteering), we got to go to places that you couldn’t go to on a daily basis if it wasn’t for SHINE,” Washika said. “Even though you may not be able to go to the place of your choice, you still really get to expand your knowledge of your community and the people around you and learn how people you may not know about very much live on a daily basis.

“Getting to know that you are helping other people is a really nice feeling, better than any Six Flags trip.”

Hannah Wulf of Long Grove said she also wants to be part of the solution.

“I started doing SHINE because I want to help people and know that whatever I am doing will make a

SHINE participants fill up food pouches. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

difference, maybe not in the entire world, but maybe in a couple people’s lives,” Wulf said. “That’s better than not helping at all.”

In his first year as part of SHINE, Bobby Kennedy of Libertyville, said he loved the feeling he got volunteering.

“It’s fun to help out other people and to see other people happy,” the teen said. “It’s fun to hang out with other people and it’s fun to do all the projects.

His favorite part of the volunteering week was the bed ministry.

“I know all the kids will have a nice cozy place to sleep and I know that they’ll be nice and safe,” Kennedy said.

kbeese@chronicleillinois.com