Acts of Kindness Transform Teens on Mission Trip to Niagara Falls

Story by Shelley Wolf

In early August, Emily D’Souza, a 16-year-old parishioner of St. Bridget of Sweden Parish in Cheshire, returned from a mission trip forever changed.

In the city of Niagara Falls, N.Y., she visited with the poor and elderly, prayed and sang worship songs with teens from around the country, and took part in a foot washing ritual that made Jesus’s example of service go from an ancient Bible story to a living lesson that awakened her faith.

“I’ve never felt closer to God,” D’Souza says.

The teen was one of 13 people who traveled from Cheshire to Niagara Falls as part of the parish’s first-ever mission trip, from July 28 to Aug. 2. The group included seven teenagers, four chaperones and Father Sean Yates, parochial vicar for St. Bridget of Sweden Parish.

Known for its nearby tourist destination, Niagara Falls State Park, the city of Niagara Falls surprised the group with its poverty, resulting from an exodus of business and industry.

“We learned 60 to 70% of the people are on some form of state assistance,” says Anthony Niglio, a youth minister for St. Bridget of Sweden who helped lead the trip. “A majority of the buildings are boarded up. It’s like a ghost town. It’s sad to see. There’s a huge need for Catholic and Christian organizations to go there and serve the community.”

To help out, the St. Bridget teens served food to the homebound in apartments, sorted clothes at a shelter for women and children, picked up trash and weeded along sidewalks for the city’s beautification department, entertained children at a Salvation Army summer camp, cleaned the Niagara Falls Arts Center, and performed breakfast and dinner prep for the 100 teens on mission from other parishes.

“Everywhere we went,” Niglio says, “everybody was super grateful.”

The teens were especially moved by an elderly woman and her disabled husband, who needed help maintaining their garden. After the teens labored in the heat, the woman treated them to cookies, ice cream bars and cold drinks.

“She was lonely and her husband was paralyzed,” D’Souza says. “She wasn’t able to keep up with her garden, so we spent the day weeding her garden and helping her out and just talking with her. I think that was one of the most meaningful parts because it didn’t occur to me it would be so impactful to her. But seeing how happy she was – how her garden brought her so much joy – meant a lot to me.”

The Christ-centered mission trip, organized by Youthworks (youthworks.com), brought together Catholic and other Christian teens from parishes in Canada, Connecticut, Iowa and Minnesota. Together, they enjoyed devotional time after breakfast and sang worship songs after dinner.

The Catholic teens spent time in Mass, adoration and confession, all offered by Father Yates. Before the group left for Niagara Falls, they collected paper hearts with handwritten prayer intentions from St. Bridget parishioners and later prayed for those intentions during daily Mass with Father Yates.

Additionally, the teens did some minor restoration work on the historic Holy Trinity Church, now owned by a nonprofit, that is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. For fun, the group visited nearby Niagara Falls State Park.

The teens were definitely out of their comfort zone, sleeping at two different parishes with no air conditioning and living out of duffel bags. “It wasn’t the Hilton,” Niglio says. 

Still, many expressed their gratitude for evening showers after a hard day’s work, he adds, and a desire to stay longer and go back.

For more information on St. Bridget of Sweden Parish, visit cheshirecatholic.org.