Prior to their big rivalry football game Sept. 27, St. Xavier and Trinity high schools’ students set competition aside to serve the indigent dead.

A group of about 30 students, including some from Assumption High School and Sacred Heart Academy, spent a hot Sept. 21 in Meadow View Cemetery. They located 40 grave sites belonging to indigent and homeless individuals and laid headstones for them.

“The rivalry is important because it allows them to compete at their highest, but when it comes to faith we have a common cause and seek the common good,” said Ben Kresse, a theology teacher at St. Xavier. 

“This is a celebration of what Catholic schools and students can do,” he said.

On a day when the temperature soared into the 90s, the students used shovels to dig up temporary plastic grave markers that displayed the name of the individual buried there. Then they dug deeper and laid the headstones made of concrete and covered with a cement polymer.

Students from Archdiocese of Louisville high schools have been serving the indigent dead since 2006 through their schools’ St. Joseph of Arimathea Society, said Kresse, who said he first heard about the idea on the radio and implemented it at St. Xavier. 

Members of St. Joseph of Arimathea Society attend the funeral of individuals who die without family or the means to be buried. At the cemetery, students lead a prayer service. 

Over the last few years, they’ve also been raising funds to purchase headstones. Kresse estimates that 600 or more students have taken part in weekly burials since 2006.

“A way for students to understand their faith is through a tangible act,” Kresse said. “You understand the celebration of Mass when you’re out doing the work. It takes the corporal acts of mercy to draw the young people in.”

Among the students who helped lay headstones Sept. 21 was Owen Strebel, a junior at Trinity.

“It reminds me of my faith,” he said. “I’m always thinking about what Jesus would do. It makes me feel happy these people are in a better place.” 

Giving them headstones is a way of showing respect for them, he added. 

Murphy Lee Schmidt, a junior at St. Xavier, said this project is a small way in which to satisfy the corporal work of mercy to bury the dead. “I know we’re not fully burying them, but we’re doing our part. … Just cleaning off their graves and making it a reverent area, just keeping their name alive is really important,” he said.

Burial services and laying of headstones are organized through the Louisville Indigent Burial program, which is administered by Catholic Charities of Louisville. Catholic Charities has been operating the program since 2021. Before that, it was operated by local government since the late 1980s, most recently by the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.

Jennifer Wilson, the Indigent Burial Program coordinator at Catholic Charities, said the program provides services for individuals who are homeless or needy. 

“The program is a way to put them to rest,” said Wilson. “ … We provide that warmth and closure for the families.”

Wilson has led the program since June. She previously served in hospice care, so this role seemed like a “natural transition,” she said. “I’m hoping to be able to help families from my experience in hospice.”

Wilson said she hopes the students will keep serving past their high school days.

By Ruby Thomas

Reprinted with permission of The Record. This article originally appeared on their website on September 25, 2024.