LYNN — Amy Savia will go without food, phone and her comfortable bed for the weekend.
But the St. Mary’s High School senior leader won’t be alone. She will be joined by 200 North Shore teens on the Hunger for Justice retreat.
Their mission is to deliver food, drinks, socks, hats, and gloves, collected from the region’s parishes, to the homeless on the Boston Common, behind St. Anthony’s Shrine on Arch Street in the downtown, and at Pine Street Inn in the city’s South End neighborhood.
“Being without all the comforts puts me in solidarity with the people we meet,” said Savia, 19. “It allows me to be in the moment and let’s me focus on the person I’m serving.”
Their weekend starts Friday afternoon at Short Beach in Nahant. After prayers, the students will march to St. Thomas Aquinas Church, carrying a cross. That night, they will sleep in makeshift cardboard tents in St. Mary’s gym.
On Saturday, the teens will board buses to bring, food, clothes and toiletries to the homeless in Boston. They return to Lynn in the afternoon to clean shelters, and assist at St. Vincent de Paul shops, and churches.
Hunger for Justice concludes with the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Mary’s on Sunday.
Christopher Kirby, a St. Mary’s senior and one of the leaders who has been doing the retreat since he was a sophomore, said it’s an opportunity he won’t miss.
The 18-year-old brings new meaning to the phrase: “He’d give you the shirt off his back.”
“On one of the retreats, we were walking around Boston and spotted a homeless man in front of a store and when I asked him if he needed anything, he said ‘A pair of socks,’ ” he said. “I told him we didn’t bring any socks, but I took off the ones I was wearing and gave them to him.”
During the weekend fasting retreat, students play group games and participate in spiritual reflections. Students go without meals and build and spend the night in their own “homes” made from cardboard.
Founded in 1999 by Andrea Alberti, the school’s campus ministry coordinator, the event’s focus is on the homeless experience.
“We want to let the homeless people we meet know that they are not alone and create conversations with them,” she said. “It’s a way for young people to understand sacrifice.”
Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].
