From left, Brayton Cibula, Nash Hennings, and Drayke Dvorak rake an older community member’s yard in Traer, Wednesday, April 22, as part of St. Paul Catholic Parish’s annual youth group spring service project. PHOTO COURTESY SARAH KOPRIVA

TRAER – High school and middle school members of St. Paul Catholic Parish’s Faith Formation class along with members of the North Tama Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) chapter spent a recent Wednesday evening cleaning up the yards of several older community members as part of an annual spring service project.

“The kids choose a different project each year,” Prince of Peace Cluster Coordinator of Religious Education (CRE) Sarah Kopriva told the newspaper. “We’ve led the younger classes in making blankets, held supply drives for pregnancy centers, written cards for the nursing home, painted rocks with encouraging messages to place around Traer, and helped pack meals for the food bank. [But] this is the first year we have taken on this project and the first year we invited another group to help us.”

As part of the project, adult crew leaders Matt Cibula, Zach Kopriva, and Rick Zmolek led small groups of 7th, 11th, and 12th grade students April 22 in completing various spring yardwork tasks at the homes of three community members. Tasks included raking, pruning, trimming, and weeding as well as hauling bags of collected debris to the local dump site.

After greeting the homeowner but before getting to work, students said the following prayer written by Faith Formation member Riley Svoboda: “Dear Lord, We pray for this home’s comings and leavings. Make this home a presence of Your love. Bless this home with protection and love. We are very grateful for being able to help out this person and bring them closer to You through our service.”

The project was originally slated to take place the week prior, but was postponed due to one of the many rounds of severe weather Iowa has been hammered with this spring. The postponement meant several 9th and 10th grade youth group members were unable to participate due to Confirmation class.

PHOTO COURTESY SARAH KOPRIVA

At the conclusion of the rescheduled project that evening, Sarah Kopriva shared with the newspaper several of the homeowners’ comments, including from Mary Ann Kucera.

“Those boys and parents were amazing,” Kucera said in a text message. “They have taken a big load off my mind. I want to cry, I am so appreciative. … I want everyone to know what great men we have at our church. Those boys give me great joy, those parents have done a great job raising them. They were so polite.”

For more information regarding St. Paul Parish’s youth group, contact Sarah Kopriva at s.kopriva@dbqarch.org.

A total of three homeowners received assistance with yardwork tasks Wednesday evening in Traer. From left, Cibula, Hennings, and Dvorak give a thumbs up to their crew leader. PHOTO COURTESY SARAH KOPRIVA