In early June, the Legacy Foundation Christine Stamper Center for Help & Hope, a Catholic Charities operated shelter that provides emergency housing for families, individuals and veterans in Bullhead City, Ariz., welcomed six young Diocese of Phoenix seminarians for a three-week poverty immersion experience. The young men arrived eager and ready to live among and walk in the footsteps of some of Bullhead City’s most vulnerable community members. Each seminarian was allowed limited resources: $50 to last the entire three weeks, a backpack with clothes and a cell phone. No other electronic devices were permitted during this experience.
Their days were spent in the shelter where they ate meals, used shower facilities and washed clothes when needed. The shelter, which opened in 2020, is the only emergency shelter for families and individuals in the tri-state area. It sleeps 57 people per night, including up to three families, 40 individuals and eight veterans. The facility also welcomes additional community members for day-use resources. For many in Bullhead City, it is the only place to escape the heat, receive water and three meals a day, as well as access to services, such as help with job applications, medical care and much more.
During the long, hot, summer days the seminarians sat with the shelter guests, getting to know them and listening to their stories of how they ended up homeless. They walked alongside men and women who have found themselves without safe housing because of illness, tragedy or record-breaking increases in costs of living. To emulate the shelter sleeping environment, without taking valuable space from those in need, in the evening, the seminarians slept on mattresses on the floor in a small, shared room at St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church in Bullhead City.
During the immersion experience, the seminarians were able to get an inside look into homelessness, allowing them to go forward in their formation with a better understanding of the unique circumstances that Arizonians face in their struggle to maintain permanent housing.
Shelter staff reported the seminarians were wonderful to have around, and shelter guests welcomed them in their quest to gain more compassion, empathy and understanding in how their faith guides them to help those in need on a level that exceeds offering plate donations. It is the hope of Catholic Charities that this experience will become a foundational building block in their seminary formation.
From David Wilmowski, one of the seminarians who participated in the Bullhead City Poverty Immersion experience:
“Overall, it was a grace-filled time. In fact, it felt like a retreat on many occasions. Before the experience, I definitely undervalued the action of ‘being with’ someone quietly. Practically, that usually meant sitting and listening to someone talk about pretty much anything without trying to ‘fix’ them.
“I realized that it’s actually never my job to ‘fix’ anyone. That person has a savior, and his name is not David Wilmowski. This was difficult, but I was given the grace to offer up many things both to Christ in union with his sacrifice on the cross (Col. 1:24).”
