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It’s summertime when thoughts of most college-age students turn to kicking back at the beach. But the archdiocese’s Pierre Toussaint Scholars decided instead to have a retreat the last weekend in June. Yes, it was their idea. The date was selected to coincide with the anniversary of the death of Venerable Pierre Toussaint, after whom the scholarship is named, on June 30, 1853.
Twenty scholars, including three recent graduates of the program and four new scholars as well as four scholarship alums, attended the retreat, held at the College of New Rochelle. The scholars organized a committee and began pulling the idea together in the spring, aided by Leah Dixon, the coordinator and adviser for the Pierre Toussaint Guild.
They selected Father Steven Bell, C.S.P., associate director of the Paulist Fathers’ Busted Halo ministry to young adults, as retreat director. He was joined during the weekend by several guests, including Father Freddy Washington, C.S.Sp., pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist parish in Harlem, which has three students in the program. The retreat included a service component, in which the scholars decorated backpacks for Catholic Charities. The backpacks will be distributed to the children of refugees.
“This is part of what makes me proud of this program,” said Brother Tyrone Davis, C.F.C., executive director of the archdiocese’s Office of Black Ministry, “that we have some of our college students-leaders involved in Church and ministry and that they might continue to do so even after graduating.”
