Students Serve Detroit Community on Blessed Mary Angela Feast Day

LIVONIA, MICH. - Madonna University students cleaned up a Detroit park Friday as part of the Catholic institution's Mission and Heritage Week, combining community service with religious observance on the feast day of Blessed Mary Angela.

About 30 first-year students in the UNV 1020 class partnered with Urban Neighborhood Initiatives to improve Lafayette-NYCRR Park in Detroit's Springwells neighborhood. The students picked up trash, pulled weeds, cleared branches and removed graffiti during the Franciscan Day of Service.

"It's incredibly appropriate that today is the feast day of Blessed Mary Angela and in the midst of our mission and heritage week, we're widening our tent to go beyond our community to serve and be what we can for other people," said Paula Soter, director of campus ministry.

Urban Neighborhood Initiatives is a nonprofit organization working to build a safe environment in southwest Detroit where residents live, work, and play.

The service project coincided with Mission and Heritage Week, running October 4-10 for Felician-sponsored ministries. This year's theme is "Widening Our Tent for Charism and Mission," drawing from the prophet Isaiah's call to "enlarge the space for your tent."

The university has organized multiple Franciscan Days of Service this semester, including trips to Forgotten Harvest, St. Edith Catholic Church, and work on Madonna's campus supporting other Felician ministries.

Mission and Heritage Week featured several events celebrating the university's Felician-Franciscan heritage, including a St. Francis Feast Day liturgy, pet blessing ceremony, interfaith prayer service, and symposium with keynote speaker Sr. Jeremy Marie Midura, CSSF.

The week concluded with a Blessed Mary Angela feast day Mass before homecoming weekend begins.

Madonna University is sponsored by the Felician Sisters, a Catholic religious order founded in Poland in 1855.