This past Saturday night, Dec. 19 through Sunday morning, Dec. 20, 96 Prep students endured the freezing Erie weather and earned over $6,000 for a great cause in the annual Box Village. From 6 p.m. on Saturday until noon on Sunday, the students and supervisors camped out on the front lawn of the 9th Street side of Prep. Every person had to bring their own box to sleep in for the night. They were not permitted to bring any sort of technology so they could focus on their service.
When the volunteers weren’t spending time by the fire or inside their boxes, they stood on the street corner and stood in the shoes of those less fortunate than them in the Erie community by asking for money. All of the proceeds went to the Emmaus Soup Kitchen, which is still recovering from a fire that occurred in the summer. Food was graciously provided by parent and alumni donations. There was also a midnight mass, which was a time to come together as a small but powerful faith community.
Cathedral Prep campus minister Fr. Jason Feigh organized the whole event, and had a few words to describe it. “Box Village is a great way to form brotherhood and to live out the Catholic faith in a positive way right before Christmas,” he said. Service makes up a major part of the Prep identity, and there is no better time than Christmas to help out those in need and to spread the Gospel.