As a Loyola student you have a unique opportunity. You are part of a Jesuit university community that at its heart is a place for you to discover and develop your gifts in a city offering many opportunities for you to use them in service to others. I’d like to share a few thoughts on service and social justice and extend an invitation to you.

First, a huge thank you to all the orientation staff, current LUCAP members and new students who volunteered who made Into the Streets such a fantastic success. Your enthusiasm and hard work was truly spectacular. I hope it was a great taste of what LUCAP is about and what Loyola has to offer.

I got involved with LUCAP when I first came to Loyola as a student. I participated in many LUCAP events and projects, but it was adult literacy and GED tutoring that captured my heart. I had done adult literacy tutoring in high school through a service learning course, but it was my experience in New Orleans that was truly life changing.

Over my four years as a student, I worked with people from ages 17 to 70 at a few different community centers. A couple times a week during my first year, I would drive down to the Martin Luther King branch of the public library in the 9th Ward.

I worked primarily with a man named Sullivan. He was about 70 years old and had worked on the docks most of his life. He told me he wanted to be able to read with his grandchildren and follow along in church with Bible readings and songs.

We worked each day on the alphabet, phonics, basic vocabulary or reading short little stories together, and we’d try to end the session by looking at a children’s book, Bible passage or a song together.

I think I can echo what many teachers and volunteers could say: I went in thinking of all the good I would do, dreaming of how I would change the world but I am still realizing just how much Sullivan and many other students taught me.

Those relationships changed me profoundly, but it wasn’t just the personal things I learned about my students; I also learned staggering facts like, according to the census data at the time, almost 40 percent of the people in Orleans Parish, basically from Loyola uptown all the way to the 9th Ward could only read at the first reading level (out of five). They were functionally illiterate.

I learned that illiteracy was a much bigger issue than I had thought – that it related to everything from failing schools to the juvenile justice system, from generational poverty to systemic racism.

This knowledge deepened my passion for social justice. Reading the words of Peter Hans Kolvenbach, a former superior general of the Jesuits, who speaks of a “well-educated solidarity,” a compassion and commitment he says is first learned through contact rather than concepts. This challenged me to imagine my life differently and called me to give more of myself in service for justice.

I wanted to offer my story as an invitation to you to be involved in service while you are at Loyola. Find something that sparks your interest – environmental issues, tutoring, mentoring, whatever. Give it your passion, your commitment, your creativity.

Look into LUCAP, service immersion trips (both foreign and in the United States) or service learning opportunities. Honestly, these are all really fun experiences and great ways to make friends.As Kolvenbach also said, the measure of a Jesuit university lies in who our students become. You have a unique opportunity here at Loyola and in New Orleans to have life-changing experiences through service.

Joshua Daly is the associate chaplain for university ministry, LUCAP advisor and director of service immersion programs. He can be reached at [email protected].