Many catechists who teach fifth grade view their 10-year-old students as young minds capable of learning about the Sacraments and the Good News of Jesus.
Frank Ranucci looks upon them as something more: "energetic little bodies who are eager to put their faith into action by performing corporal works of mercy and love."
The 19 children who have occupied his Grade 5 religious education classroom at Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Schenectady since the fall are living proof that his theory has merit. Proudly sporting t-shirts that proclaim Our Lady of the Assumption on the front and the message "The Good News Kids: Living the Golden Rule" on the back, the youngsters have enthusiastically tackled one outreach project after the next over the past six months.
Sheets and bedding
Their most recent effort entailed answering a call for help from the Home Furnishings Program, an ecumenical ministry that supplies clean, reusable household items to people in need.
The Schenectady-based program helps families who are in transition due to abandonment, domestic violence, homelessness, hospital discharge, illness or unemployment.
Specifically, Mr. Ranucci's "Good News Kids" have been collecting donations of blankets, sheets, pillow cases, bedspreads and other bed coverings to be given to those urgently in need of such items. Representatives of the class manned collection boxes at the church on recent weekends and then did most of the sorting, folding and labelling of the bedding.
More projects
Previous projects have ranged from painting an elderly parishioner's garage to collecting baby food for an inner city mission. The students have also "adopted" a woman who is suffering from a life-threatening illness.
"The kids send her letters every six weeks, and they each put their notes in individual envelopes so she gets roughly 20 different pieces of mail. And you should see the banner they made her for Valentine's Day!" exclaimed Mr. Ranucci.
At Christmas, the Good New Kids not only decorated boxes and baked cookies and loaves of homemade bread to place inside them for the poor -- they actually put together an entire holiday feast for a needy family in the area.
Recalls Mr. Ranucci: "We got permission to deliver our meal, which literally included everything from soup to nuts, to a single father and his children. Not all 19 students could accompany me to the home, although they all wanted to; but the few I brought along got a chance to visit with the kids and see first-hand what it's like to not have all the things they tend to take for granted. It was a real eye-opener for the students."
On the beat
Mr. Ranucci, a father of two grown children and grandfather of two little ones, says his own eyes were opened to "the inequalities and injustices of life" during his 23 years as a police officer in Schenectady.
"My years as a cop taught me that social issues like poverty have deep roots and that you cannot look to the government to solve everyone's problems," he said.
He uses a quotation to sum up the situation: "Too many people are ready to carry the stool when the piano needs to be moved." To that, he quickly adds: "The Good News Kids at Our Lady of Assumption Church are moving the piano."