At 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, Franciscan University’s campus is still blanketed in darkness. Except for Christ the King Chapel. There, the lights are on, and the pews already occupied for Mass.
The group of students gathered there pray, receive the Eucharist, and then pile into vans. Their mission? To bring the Jesus they just encountered in Mass to the streets of nearby Pittsburgh.
The building they arrive at blends into the city block. It’s tucked near a daycare center and a hairdresser. Behind this relatively nondescript exterior, however, is an abortion clinic. The students will spend their Saturday morning standing outside and praying for the unborn babies and their mothers, as well as helping to sidewalk counsel.
This Saturday pro-life ministry is just one of the many ways Franciscan University students serve within the local community. In fact, they participate in service ministries every day of the week. And these ministries all make up the outreach known as Works of Mercy.
Mission Territory
As defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, works of mercy are charitable actions that care for another’s spiritual and material needs. Spiritual works of mercy include instructing, consoling, and comforting, while corporal works of mercy include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick.
That’s why, under the umbrella of Franciscan’s Missionary Outreach Office directed by Rhett Young ’94, Works of Mercy focuses on serving the elderly, youth, families, and the poor within the Ohio Valley and Pittsburgh area. Each ministry is student-led, typically with two co-leads per ministry.
Pro-life ministry students pray outside a Pittsburgh abortion clinic on a Saturday morning.
“What I have seen over and over again in our students as they give of themselves in our Works of Mercy sites is that God shows them their true heart’s desire and passion for loving others,” Young says. “This becomes one window for them to better understand their personal vocation that God is illuminating by these specific acts of service.”
As the Works of Mercy coordinator, senior Bridget Dutton helps oversee the entire Works of Mercy outreach and facilitates the logistics. She, along with a few religious sisters, also helps provide formation for the leads. Each week, these leads gather to reflect on Scripture and discuss how they can better serve others.
“Our duty as part of this community is to minister and give back right where we are,” Dutton says. “There’s so much mission territory in our immediate vicinity.”
Geographically, this mission territory may only span the short distance from Steubenville to Pittsburgh. But its large scope comes through the sheer number of ministries.
Some provide for material needs, such as serving food for the homeless in Pittsburgh or organizing food pantries in Steubenville. Others help with kids’ after-school programs and minister to youth. Still others go door-to-door to evangelize or visit nursing homes to talk with elderly residents.
The common denominator among these ministries? They show students they don’t have to go to a foreign country or embark on an extended mission trip to serve others.
“Growing up, I often thought, ‘I need to go do this service project,’ as if service is a separate way of life,” says sophomore Patrick Veazey, who is a co-lead for the group that visits the Carriage Inn nursing home on Sunday afternoons. Through participating in Works of Mercy, he’s realized instead that “what we’re really called to do is just love the best we can in the present moment. Ministry doesn’t have to be this scary, daunting thing.”
Serving others, after all, is part of being a Christian. Dutton points to Gaudium et spes, which states that man “cannot fully find himself except through sincere gift of himself.”
Works of Mercy, Dutton says, “provides an opportunity for more self-knowledge and growth for students so they can learn their particularities and how the Lord has made them to serve in different ways.”
Loving Women and Babies
Each Saturday morning, anywhere from 20 to 30 students between two shifts stand in the Pittsburgh alleyway beside the abortion clinic. Most kneel or stand with rosaries in hand and begin praying. A few are trained as sidewalk counselors. They approach the women headed inside to offer a message of hope and suggest the assistance of a nearby pregnancy resource center.
One sidewalk counselor is the pro-life ministry’s co-lead Abigail Marquardt. The current junior has always had a heart for the pro-life movement but hadn’t prayed outside an abortion clinic before she came to Franciscan University. Since the first time she went to Pittsburgh with the Works of Mercy group as a freshman, she knew she was called to this ministry.
But the work is not easy, and it’s not glamorous.
“You certainly feel the tangible, spiritual battle happening between good and evil,” Marquardt says. “It’s a difficult ministry, one we don’t often see fruits from because there are volunteers for the abortion facility who stand outside on the sidewalk as well, and it’s their job to usher the client in as efficiently as they possibly can.”
Even with the few people they know have gone instead to the local pregnancy resource center, the students never know whether the mother ultimately chooses life or not. This seeming lack of results can lead to anger and frustration. Yet Marquardt has learned to see those moments as an opportunity to practice compassion and true trust in God.
“Something I tell myself when I go there is Christ’s words on the cross, ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,’” she says. “We try to imitate the Father’s mercy and stand there in the joy of the Resurrection. You see such sadness, but you just have to cling to the hope that it will be redeemed.”
Sophomore Liam Roddy, as the other co-lead, oversees the students who pray near the clinic. They typically pray a full Rosary and a Divine Mercy Chaplet. Their task is not as hands-on as the sidewalk counselors but is certainly no less important.
“Just by being present there outside the clinic and loving the women and babies going in, we might be the only people on earth who ever show love for that baby before he or she is aborted,” Roddy says.
“Honestly, the ministry is my favorite part of the week,” Marquardt adds. “I get to leave the hill and see the reality of being in the world and the pain and suffering these women are going through” and “just be there with them and love them.”
Hanging Out in the Neighborhood
“Free coffee, tea, and hot chocolate!” advertises a chalkboard sign outside a brick house on Steubenville’s North Fifth Street. The covered front porch is filled with students and locals alike. They’re sitting in chairs or perched on the steps, just chatting and enjoying steaming beverages on the autumn afternoon. Soon, school lets out. A few teens with backpacks slung over their shoulders stop by the house. On the sidewalk, they challenge each other to see how far they can jump in a single leap.
Opened in fall 2023, the St. Anthony Mission House is where Missionary Outreach teams can gather to pray and hold meetings, but it also hosts this budding “porch ministry.” The kitchen is always well stocked with drinks and, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, students are always willing to talk.
Graduate assistant Francisco Guizar says when the mission house’s porch ministry first started, they didn’t get discouraged when people didn’t stop by.
“The first couple of days, we didn’t have that much activity, but we were fine with it because, at the very least, we were encountering each other,” Guizar says. “Then, we saw a few people begin to hang out and, all of a sudden, we’re having in-depth conversations with some of them.”
By November, the names of visitors already spanned two columns in the house’s guest book. The students pray for the names listed there, whether that person has dropped by only once or is a weekly regular.
Franciscan students help tidy up at the Friendship Room in Steubenville.
Veazey has joined in the porch ministry a few times. In addition to his visits to the nursing home, he says being at the mission house has given him the opportunity to connect with people and hear their stories. One time, he and the other students saw two people walking and offered them coffee and hot chocolate. At first, the passersby hesitated, but they ended up staying to talk for over an hour.
“The more I’ve gone to do ministry, the more I’ve realized that ministry is just a way of living,” Veazey says. “It’s just thinking right now, ‘How am I going to best minister to the next person I see?’”
Just down the block from the St. Anthony Mission House is another downtown Steubenville location where students volunteer: Friendship Room. Founded by Molly and Bill ’89 McGovern, this relational ministry serves the immediate needs of those in Steubenville and the Ohio Valley. Here, the work is more hidden and behind-the-scenes, says co-lead Charley Truitt.
At the Friendship Room, students might be tasked with anything from sorting the food pantry to collecting trash. Truitt began volunteering with the Friendship Room her freshman year as a way to occupy her Friday afternoons. By the semester’s end, she was leading Franciscan’s efforts.
“Through Friendship Room, I’ve definitely developed a strong relationship with St. Thérèse and her Little Way,” she says. “Doing small things with great love and offering them up to the Lord means it doesn’t matter what you are doing, just the amount of love that goes into it.”
Over the years, she has seen the number of students participating grow—so much so, they regularly drive two vans to the Friendship Room each Friday. Whether sorting donations or cleaning, the students serve those in need in the local neighborhood in small but not insignificant ways.
Her fellow co-lead, sophomore Jonah Ebent, says helping at the Friendship Room and participating in the porch ministry have helped him realize how “every person you’re encountering, every conversation you have, even if it’s just a passing encounter, was put there by God for a purpose and a reason.”
A Lasting Impact
Measuring the impact of the Franciscan students who have participated in Works of Mercy over the decades would be impossible. Could it be counted in the food pantry shelves stocked? The prayers prayed for the unborn and their families? The friendly conversations had and the cups of coffee shared?
That’s not even taking into account the impact of Works of Mercy on the student volunteers themselves. Talking with any Works of Mercy participant quickly reveals how much they, too, have been changed through their service work and the people they’ve encountered. These are lessons alumni have carried with them beyond Franciscan’s hilltop.
“Works of Mercy taught me how to meet Christ in people wherever they’re at,” says Zach Gochee ’22.
Gochee also says Works of Mercy has impacted his postgrad career. He works for a supply chain industrial company at a branch in Illinois, and he credits the management skills he uses daily to his time as a student coordinator for Works of Mercy.
“Being a coordinator gave me the opportunity of working a real job in a management position and the ability to lead my peers in an efficient and effective way,” he says. In any job, “you’re going to have odd or tough situations that come your way but, when you’ve dealt with situations like them before, you know you can handle it again.”
When Gochee transferred to Franciscan in 2019, he had already served in Habitat for Humanity at his previous college. His passion for doing manual labor led him to join D.A.D., or “Down And Dirty.” This Works of Mercy ministry allows men to take on home projects and do other odd jobs around the community.
One such job involved a senior citizen who had flammable material dumped on his property. The material had been ordered to be removed, so the man asked for help. Gochee and seven other students came to the property, yet the amount of labor needed seemed impossible for the small group. Still, they said a short prayer to St. Joseph and got to work.
Within a few hours, they had cleared the entire lot.
“It’s a testament to how much the Lord is with you even in the struggles and at times that may seem bleak,” Gochee says. “If you put your mind to something and involve the Lord, the work is going to get done.”
Marilyn Griffin ’21 hadn’t worked with an inner-city ministry before coming to college. One night, her friends invited her to join them in serving teens at the local Vagabond Missions—a ministry for inner-city kids started by Bob Lesnefsky ’99, director of Student Evangelization and Household Life at Franciscan University. Griffin continued to minister at Vagabond Missions for three years. She got to interact with the teens, share her testimony, and hear their stories in return. The biggest blessing, though, came when one girl asked her an important question.
“I will never forget the day she asked me to be her godmother and accompany her to be welcomed into the Church and receive baptism, confirmation, and Holy Communion,” Griffin says.
Griffin’s passion for evangelizing and accompanying others didn’t fade when she received her diploma. For two years, she was a missionary with Christ in the City where she lived in community and served people living on the streets. Now, she works as a case manager at a Pittsburgh women’s shelter called Gift of Mary.
“Works of Mercy taught me that human connection and relationship are what truly change people’s lives and break the cycle of hopelessness,” she says. “We need people to walk with us and believe in us. We cannot go at it alone. Not only did I learn this for the people I want to serve and love, but I also learned it for myself, realizing that I, too, need people who are going to walk with me for the journey.”
Today, Franciscan students continue to learn these same lessons as they set aside their schoolwork for an hour or two, pile into Missionary Outreach vans, and venture off campus.
“By participating in Works of Mercy, being present there, and sacrificing our time, we can imitate in a small way Christ’s sacrifice for us,” says Roddy, the pro-life ministry co-lead. “Even just by going out on ministry once a week, it can really affect your day-to-day life and help you grow and see others around you as children of God.”
Franciscan student helps stock cart at Urban Mission’s food pantry
Works of Mercy Ministries
Since its founding, Works of Mercy has connected connected Franciscan University students with local community services and projects. Over the decades, the specific ministries have changed, but the focus on service to the elderly, youth, and the poor and needy of the Ohio Valley and Pittsburgh remains the same. Here are the current ways our students serve.
Ministries to the Elderly and Sick
• Carriage Inn: Bring the joy and peace of Christ to the residents of Carriage Inn nursing home through conversation, relationship, and prayers with and for the residents.
• Catherine’s Care: Spend time with and get to know the residents at Catherine’s Care, as well as provide ways to brighten their days through crafts and cards.
Ministries to Youth
• Sycamore Center: Participate in an after-school program designed for at-risk kids that teaches practical and fun life skills in a Christian environment.
• Vagabond Missions: Work in a core team to minister to local youth at the Urban Underground.
• Weirton Christian Center: Help in the classrooms, assisting with tutoring and entertaining the children.
Ministries to Families
• Abortion Clinic/Sidewalk Counseling: Pray outside abortion abortion clinics as well as minister to women.
• Students Serving Moms: Commit to serving a local family for an entire semester.
Ministries to the Poor and Needy
• Friendship Room: Help with odd jobs and spend time with those who come for aid at this relational shelter.
• Pittsburgh Homeless: Serve food and water to the homeless in Pittsburgh while providing relational ministry every other week. On weeks off, students pray the Rosary at the other week. On weeks off, students pray the Rosary at the Rosary Circle.
• D.A.D.: Fulfill manual labor requests from the community.
• Encounter Steubenville: Go door-to-door with the members of Men’s Mission House to evangelize in Steubenville’s LaBelle area.
• St. Anthony Mission House: Participate in “porch ministry,” encountering Steubenville residents as they walk by the Mission House on Fifth Street.
• Urban Mission: Help package and distribute food and necessities to local Steubenville residents, as well as encounter guests at Urban Mission Fresh Market.
