By: Bob DiLeo
Georgian Court is a university located in Lakewood, New Jersey that takes their faith and Mercy Core Values very seriously. Their five mercy core values are respect, integrity, justice, compassion, and service. The Mercy Collegiate Society at Georgian Court makes the mercy core value, service, their main priority.
The Mercy Collegiate Society are a group of people at Georgian Court that work together to help others in need. There is a total of sixty members that are currently a part of this club. Their main mission and motto are that when they see a need, that is where they will go.
Jeffrey Schaffer, who is the director of campus ministry, has been a part of the Georgian Court community for the past 5 years. When he came, he was asked to be the advisor/mentor of the Mercy Collegiate Society. Even though he is the director of campus ministry and helps advise the Mercy Collegiate Society, he is still not considered the full “leader” of this club because they do not have a president. All of their members have an equal say in everything. They like to call this their leadership circle. They have a leadership circle because they are all co-equals with each other. There is no form of hierarchy within this team. They also are set up in three groups that each help contribute to the club. They have recruiters, people who help set up their events, and the people who plan the fundraisers/meetings.
If a person is interested to be a member, it is not a hard process to become one. All the person has to do is fill out an application that can be found and filled out online on the Georgian Court website. Besides that, members of the team would be passing out paper applications at the open houses at the school. When someone decides that they want to join the club and fill out the application, it is not that hard to become a member. You just have to show that you will be dedicated to the team and that you will participate in the events. If you show that you are interested and that you will be dedicated, they will accept you. This year, they had roughly around sixty people that applied. Out of the sixty, only twenty people were accepted. The twenty people that were picked to join the team were the people that showed the most dedication out of the other applicants.
What is also great about joining this team is that
anyone can become a member.
Even though Georgian Court is a Catholic school and the group was founded on Sister Catherine McAuley, you do not have to be Catholic to become a member. If the members are going to the chapel for mass or to worship, it is not frowned upon if you do not want to go because you may have a different religion or even no religion at all.
After you apply, and they decide to accept you, the main focus you have to do is help raise funds for your future trips. Going on these trips is their main way of helping people in need. They usually plan on taking a trip every other year. They take this time to raise the money to help make these trips more affordable. Besides that, they make sure to meet with each other at least once a month. They usually meet up in the Catherine McAuley Heritage Chapel for an hour. They know that everyone is in school and that they have work to do. As long as you show that you care about this team, then that is all that matters. They only requirement that they will ask of you is to maintain a 2.5 GPA while you are part of the team. Even if they see that you are struggling with your grades, they will not just kick you off the team. They will see what problem you are having and even try helping you to find a tutor. They just want the best for you and to help grow into someone who wants to be of service to others. As Jeff Schaffer stated, the main goal is to “Become a man and woman of Mercy.”
A student that goes to Georgian Court that is very passionate about this team is Juan Quintero. He is a senior now and he has been part of the team since his freshman year. He participates in numerous clubs at Georgian Court, but he states that this is his favorite out of all of them.
Juan has been able to be a part of two trips the team has gone on since he has joined. He was able to go Guyana and Dublin, Ireland. Guyana is a third world country that is near Venezuela. When the team went there, they went on their fiftieth year of independence. Juan only had to pay seventy-five dollars to go to there because they got a grant and they were able to use the money they raised from their past fundraisers and events. When he went, he was able to missionary work. He had the opportunity to work with hospitals, orphanages, and special needs schools. By doing this, he also able to learn some sign language on the way because he was able to work with deaf children. When he was there, he was also secluded from the outside world. He had no phone or internet. Only one person was allowed to take pictures during this trip. After going on this trip and he was able to see what this club is really all about, he said, “When you get into the club, you learn compassion, you learn mercy, you learn the real world, especially after going to Guyana.”
Any other person who wanted to travel to different countries like Ireland and Guyana would have to spend an insane amount of money. When you are a member of Mercy Collegiate Society, you have an amazing opportunity to go on these amazing trips for prices that you would not get anywhere else. The students, like Juan, that went to Dublin only had to pay 75 dollars for a week trip, while the three-week trip to Guyana was roughly around five hundred dollars for twelve days. So, while traveling to two different countries, Juan and the other members only had to pay for a combined five hundred and seventy-five dollars.
The other trip to Dublin, Ireland was an also extremely important trip because they were able to travel to the birthplace of Sister Catherine McAuley. That is where the Sisters of Mercy originated from. That is the group the Mercy Collegiate Society gets their inspiration from. Even during the Critical Concerns, which is an event that the club helps promote, helped inform student about one of the social justices that the Sisters of Mercy try to advocate for, which was immigration. The other social justices that the Sisters of Mercy advocate for are anti-racism, the earth, nonviolence, and women. The Sisters of Mercy believes that every person created by God deserves to be treated equally, especially the struggles that immigrants have to go through. They believe that, “With our presence throughout Latin America, we witness first hand the deepening poverty and violence that force families to flee their homes in search of economic and physical security.” The Sisters of Mercy last year participated in a “Solidarity Walk and Mass for immigrants” for their support of immigrants.
Besides these two trips, the Mercy Collegiate Society is still not done. They are planning on next on saving money to go to Haiti, in which they plan on continuing to live out Sister Catherine McAuley’s message of service and love. As Sister Catherine McAuley once said, “Nothing can rank in importance to gentleness of manner and sweetness of demeanor towards others.”
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