Sacrifice in the Service of Others
Forty youth from St. Mary learn practical skills during WorkCamp, a week dedicated to serving those in need by repairing their homes. They also learn first-hand the power of service.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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When temperatures soar, and the humidity does too, the only roof you’d expect many teenagers to be atop are ones in video games.
Not so the roughly 40 teens from St. Mary Catholic Church in Fredericksburg who last week were on real roofs (appropriately secured with safety harnesses), or otherwise occupied working on plumbing, kitchens, decks, and flooring in homes north of Harrisonburg in need of repair.
Fifteen-year-old Joshua Paquette said he “wanted to be there more than [he] worried about the heat.”
The reason is simple. “We are called to serve and to lead,” he said, “but you must serve” before you can lead.
That was a common sentiment among those teens from St. Mary who spoke with the Advance about why they chose to take part in WorkCamp 2025, which is organized by the Diocese of Arlington and involved some 800 youths across the diocese.
Catherine Duplantier has done WorkCamp for three years, and she found this one to be the most rewarding. “You can see how much [the people we’re assisting] are touched” by the work we’re doing. “It’s satisfying.”
The 17-year-old Duplantier said that the experience has been important in helping her better appreciate the importance of providing service to the community.
Izzy Tueros, who’s 15, enjoyed doing “work going toward something good.” She was moved by the fact that “the person we were working with was so grateful even before we were finished.”
Beyond giving up the comfort of central air and a week of their summer, the teens made other concessions to help improve the 105 homes that benefitted from the program.
Namely, they had to give up their phones, sleep on the floor at a local school during the week, and learn to get by on a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches said St. Mary Director of Youth Tatiana Beltran.
For the kids, however, it wasn’t as challenging as all that. Though Tueros found herself “mourning the loss of her phone” at the beginning, after a day she didn’t really miss it. She was too busy interacting with the other teens who were in her crew.
And while Paquette acknowledged consuming a lot of PB&Js, he said that the evening dinners were a different matter. “We were fed well.”
Each crew is composed of five to seven people, and the teens don’t get to choose the people they’ll work with. Beltran said that they’re randomized so that the kids don’t gravitate to their friends.
This not only breaks up cliques, but it teaches teens to learn about those they’re working with by communicating face-to-face with one another. Without their phones, real conversation came relatively easy.
To take part in WorkCamp, the teens spend the year raising funds for the trip. That money is used to pay for the materials they’ll need to carry out the home repairs.
A dozen contractors from St. Mary and 8 adult leaders also made the trip. The contractors trained the kids in the work they were engaged with and ensured that they were safe while on the job. Before climbing onto a roof, for example, teens had to spend time getting training on harnessing in.
To take part, the adult volunteers take vacation time from their jobs.
Jim Engbert, one of the adult volunteers, is an engineer and has been a regular on these excursions. He enjoys the time with the kids, as well as seeing how the experience deepens their connection to their faith.
Spiritual practice is a part of the experience, allowing the teens a chance to connect the practice of faith with acts of service in the world.
While WorkCamp is for Catholic teens, the beneficiaries of their work are from all faith traditions — or no faith tradition at all — said Beltran. The diocese works with local social service agencies and parishes to identify individuals and families who would benefit from home repairs.
To be sure, the work was hot and the days were long, but the teens the Advance spoke with enjoyed it all — the work, the conditions, even the heat.
When one is called to serve, sacrifice, these teens are learning, becomes a condition to be sought rather than an inconvenience to be avoided.
Updated June 30, 2025, at 8:33 to correct spelling of camp name to “WorkCamp.”
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