By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Living in Little Village has been an education for Steve DeLaney, an Amate House volunteer.

“Little Village has a lot of gang problems, a lot of problems that other inner-city areas have,” said DeLaney, who grew up in Fairfax, Va., and graduated from George Mason University. “When you look at it from the outside, it’s overwhelming. But being there, knowing the people—it’s very grounding. They’re just people, families like where I grew up.”

DeLaney, in his third year at Amate House, has spent two years in Little Village, working as a youth minister at Assumption Parish, 2434 S. California Ave. He also visits inmates at Cook County Jail with Father Lawrence Craig, Assumption’s pastor and director of the Kolbe House prison ministry.

“Amate House gives you access to an experience that you wouldn’t normally get,” DeLaney said.

This year, 28 adults ages 21 to 30 served as Amate House volunteers, living in community, growing personally and spiritually and giving their time, effort and enthusiasm to a variety of Chicago parishes, schools and agencies that might not otherwise be able to afford full-time staff. Amate House now is looking for volunteers to serve next year, said Amate House executive director Mark Laboe.

The 17-year-old volunteer program aims to help both the volunteers and the agencies where they work, Laboe said.

“Our major focus is the formation of young adults as leaders in the church and the world,” Laboe said.

Amate House volunteers live at three sites. The largest, at St. William Parish on the far Northwest Side, includes 15 volunteers in their first year of service.

DeLaney lives in the Little Village house with three other volunteers, all of whom have put in at least one year already. Little Village provides a more intensive experience, because volunteers live in the community where they work.

The third house, at DePaul University, is for full-time students who volunteer six to 10 hours a week, Laboe said.

Volunteers receive housing, food, health insurance and transportation to and from work, along with a small monthly stipend.

They live in an environment designed to open them up to spiritual growth, Laboe said. Volunteers must attend weekly community nights and three retreats each year.

“Part of what we do is set up a structure where it’s most likely the volunteer will develop spiritually and personally,” Laboe said. “The motivation has to come from them. Part of what I do is take whatever motivation they have and pour gas on it.”

Pushing volunteers out of their comfort zones—by having them cross racial and economic lines in their work or live with people who think differently from them—makes them more vulnerable to spiritual and personal development, Laboe believes.

DeLaney said he was attracted to Amate House because the staff pay so much attention to the volunteers, helping them settle into their positions and facilitating the smooth operation of the community house.

For DeLaney, the turn towards service came during his sophomore year in college, when he spent spring break with Maryknoll missionaries in Mexico. Some volunteers have had similar epiphanies, while others are taking a year to do service before starting law or medical school. Some have been in the work force for a few years, and want to head in a new direction.

About three quarters of the 300 Amate House alumni have continued in service professions, Laboe said.

Each year, as many as a third to a half of the volunteers stay as paid staff where they were placed. One school, St. Agnes of Bohemia, has three Amate House volunteers teaching there this year. Seven of its full-time staff are Amate House alumni.

Operating the program takes about $340,000 a year, Laboe said, with most of the money coming from fundraisers and private donations.

For DeLaney, who plans to start working on a master’s degree in theology at Catholic Theological Union next fall, Amate House has provided something more important than money.

“I feel like what I’m doing really matters,” he said. “I love working with youth. I love working with the kids. I came wanting it to be a testing ground for myself. I think I found out I was a lot stronger than I thought I could be.”



For information about Amate House, visit www.amatehouse.org or call (773) 745-0002.