Sheil Catholic Center will showcase the artwork of teen residents of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center on Feb. 15 as part of an ongoing prison ministry program between Northwestern students and the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation. The art show “Prison and Art” will take place after 11:30 a.m. Mass at Sheil and a panel on homelessness run by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless will follow.
The show will include both artistic and poetic submissions from “artists presently incarcerated or on release from prison,” according to a flyer distributed by Sheil. The art show stems from the Art Therapy Program at the detention center. Graduates from the detention center will attend the show, said Sheil Campus Minister Tim Higgins, who coordinates the program for NU.
The panel will feature both formerly and currently homeless people who will answer audience questions and discuss their experiences living on the streets. They will address topics such as legislation, prostitution, youth homelessness and re-entry after prison, according to a flyer advertising the event.
Seven student volunteers from Sheil visit the detention center weekly to mentor residents. On the visits, the students speak with the residents for about five hours, which “gives (the residents) a safe place and person to whom they can speak to about feelings and emotions,” said the Rev. Dave Kelly, the executive director of Precious Blood Ministry, which facilitates the program between NU and the detention center.
The program began when a graduate student asked the campus minister if there were any available prison ministry programs, Higgins said. After finding a Chicago-based program through the Kolbe House Catholic Jail Ministry at Assumption Church that sent chaplains to prisons, he began a partnership with the Precious Blood Ministry to send volunteers. The Precious Blood Ministry is located on the South Side of Chicago and is partnered with Sheil on other projects as well.
“We meet one-on-one with (residents) and listen to their stories,” Higgins said. “It’s a ministry of presence.”
Organizers said the youth in the center seem to improve emotionally from the support of the volunteers.
“It’s not radical change,” Kelly said. “You can see in them a sense of someone caring enough to listen.”
Most center residents are black or Latino teenage males who are required by law to be in the center for varying lengths of time.
“I have met kids who it’s their first time, but there are also kids who it’s their ninth or 10th time in the center,” said Alexis Echevarria, a Weinberg junior.
The show and panel will be free, but one may make a “free will” donation, according to the flyer.
