St. Joseph’s Project Returns

After a two year hiatus, the St. Joseph’s Project (SJP) has finally made its return to campus. Before the days of COVID-19, a small group of students would meet every Friday to make sandwiches. They took these sandwiches, along with whatever warm clothing the members of the group brought with them, into Boston to distribute to the homeless. They would not just give them sandwiches and move on, but strike up conversations with them and build relationships. When COVID-19 hit, however, the project was derailed. Students were sent back home, and the SJP went dormant as previous members graduated and restrictions on gatherings made it difficult to meet.

On March 4, the SJP met for the first time since 2020, led by Tanner Loper, MCAS ’23. A transfer student to BC, Loper had not had a chance to participate in SJP, but was aware of it and decided that he would take charge to bring it back. “I was tired of waiting for someone else to bring it back,” he said. “I constantly heard talk about it, others saying they wished it would come back, and so I decided to take the initiative and see where it goes.”

Having previously worked at a homeless shelter for a year, he said that he was already comfortable working with this population. In Boston in particular, the resources for the homeless are fairly extensive, and the homeless are generally aware of them. Many of them are in public housing or shelters, or are in and out of temporary housing, or are well established in shelters on the streets. The city of Boston has meal programs for the homeless that many of them take advantage of. As Loper explains, however, the goal of SJP is not just to feed the homeless. “When we go to meet these people, we are bringing a sandwich but more than anything attentive ears,” he stressed, highlighting that the project is truly about encountering these people as people, not just treating them as a service opportunity.

If the project was only focused on material efficacy, then it would make more sense to just donate money to whatever programs were offered to the homeless—this would stretch the dollars more. But for Loper and the SJP, it’s about “trying to bring into the world the corporal works of mercy.” This is why the group does not look to any funding from the school, but instead pays for supplies out of their own pockets. In the email sent out announcing that the SJP was returning, Loper included a poem from Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, excerpted here: “To feed the hungry at a personal sacrifice, to clothe the naked at a personal sacrifice, to shelter the homeless at a personal sacrifice, to instruct the ignorant at a personal sacrifice; such were the works of the first Christians in times of persecution.”

The SJP does not see itself as simply another service project. The goal is to encounter the homeless in the same manner as Christ and the early Church. Loper does, however, see the specific benefit that it can bring to Boston College students. He relates that one of the people the group talked to on their last outing left a deep impression on the students. This woman lived in subsidized housing with her nephew. She described the issues that her nephew had at school, and the abusive relationship he had with his father. She disclosed that she had also been abused growing up. Students were surprised by this story of multigenerational abuse and poverty, something that Loper noted. “Because BC is a place of hope and upward mobility, our life progresses in a line. But for many, their life goes in a circle, following a cyclical pattern of poverty. We must recognize this and at least keep these people in our hearts.”

Currently, SJP meets at 3 p.m. every first and third Friday of the month in the Voute Hall third floor lounge. Anyone interested in joining SJP to make sandwiches and/or distribute them in the city should contact Tanner Loper at lopert@bc.edu.