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'Everybody has worth': High school kids serve as pallbearers for homeless veterans

“These veterans were men I had never met, but they helped make the country I live in safer and stronger ... Every person deserves a proper burial.”
Teens help bury homeless veterans
Catholic Memorial students serve as pallbearers for a homeless veteran.Catholic Memorial

When homeless veterans die without family or friends to claim them, some high school students are helping lay them to rest with honor and respect.

“There’s something powerful about seeing a coffin in your school,” Dr. Peter Folan, president of Catholic Memorial college preparatory school, which hosts military funerals, tells TODAY.com. “The American flag right there, and when you see those two current servicemen fold the flag, play taps and then hand that flag to the history teacher who was a Marine — that’s a full circle moment for a kid. We don’t necessarily understand the power of that symbolism. We need that more now than ever.”

Teens help bury homeless veterans
Students at Catholic Memorial volunteer for the funeral of a veteran in 2023.Catholic Memorial

Folan leads the Boston school's initiative to host the funeral processions of veterans who die without family or friends. The program started in 2017, and since then numerous funerals have taken place in the school's chapel. Services have sometimes been held in the gym in front of the entire 600-person school.

“Kids begin to recognize that those are people who have sacrificed much and have displayed incredible courage, duty and honor,” he says. “And now in their final moments, for a whole host of reasons, some of which we don’t know enough about each individual, they are alone — and we’re here to stand with them and bring them into our community. That has a transformational impact on a 15- or 16- year-old young man.”

Teens help bury homeless veterans
Catholic Memorial students volunteer as pallbearers for a veteran's funeral in 2023.Catholic Memorial

From pallbearers to reading scripture, or simply as mourners paying their respects, students take on several roles during the funerals.

"When we as a school come together to talk about and bury someone who has died without family and friends, that leads to work informing, forming and then ultimately transforming those students through that experience," Folan says. "That’s really why we’re doing it, is to make those intricate linkages between the head and the heart."

Teens help bury homeless veterans
"There’s something powerful about seeing a coffin in your school," Catholic Memorial School's president says.Catholic Memorial

Catholic Memorial is not the only school where students work to make sure veterans are buried with dignity and respect.

“It’s really extraordinary to take note of someone who was left to die in the cold on the street,” Richard Mazyck, campus ministry and service coordinator for University of Detroit Jesuit School, tells TODAY.com. “They have no family and friends that anyone is able to contact ... It’s a reminder that every person, especially in the Christian religious tradition, is made in the image of God and is deserving of a particular regard and respect.”

Students at the all-boys University of Detroit Jesuit School serve as pallbearers for a veteran in 2015.
Students at the all-boys University of Detroit Jesuit School serve as pallbearers for a veteran in 2015.Courtesy University of Detroit Jesuit School

Mazyck manages the Pallbearer Ministry at the Michigan high school. The student volunteers take the time out of their school day to help support a ceremony or burial for veterans or others who would otherwise be buried alone.

"We might even very strongly disagree at various times, but everybody has worth and value. Assisting at their funeral, or at their committal and burial, is a way of honoring their lives, even though we may have never met them," he says.

The Pallbearer Ministry at the school began after six seniors volunteered to help bury three unclaimed veterans in October, 2015. Since then, volunteers have helped carry veterans in ceremonies at Great Lakes National Cemetery and others cemeteries around the Detroit area.

University of Detroit Jesuit School students in 2016 volunteer at a funeral: 'It's really an honor,' the campus ministry coordinator says.
University of Detroit Jesuit School students in 2016 volunteer at a funeral: 'It's really an honor,' the campus ministry coordinator says.Courtesy University of Detroit Jesuit School

"This was an opportunity to give something to somebody who finished their life on the fringe of society," Tom Lennon, a former student, told TODAY.com in 2015. "These veterans were men I had never met, but they helped make the country I live in safer and stronger. No matter who they were or what they did on earth, every person deserves a proper burial."

Sometimes the students carry the coffin, and at other times they act as a team of "honor guards" who provide support and pray for the deceased.

The program paused from 2019-2021 because of COVID, but has come back stronger than ever.

It's really an honor and, in itself, its own consolation to be able to offer some support.

Richard mazyck

The school ministry has partnered with A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Home in Troy, Michigan. The county attempts to find relatives to claim the body, but if nobody has responded after 90 days, the veterans are cared for by the funeral home.

“The students’ service is quite simply valuable to our firm because that is what we do — we serve our community by caring for and honoring the dead, regardless of financial circumstances," John Desmond, the funeral home's director, told TODAY.com in 2015.

Caskets are provided by the Dignity Memorial Network's Homeless Veterans Program, which aims to provide homeless and unclaimed veterans with a proper military burial across the country.

Mazyck says the volunteers often reflect during and after the service.

"It's great to be with other people and pray with them, encourage them or just be present with them when they're in their sorrow. We all have times and moments of sorrow in our lives, including the passing of loved ones and friends and colleagues," Mazyck says.

"So it's really an honor and, in itself, its own consolation to be able to offer some support."

Teens help bury homeless veterans
Catholic Memorial students serve as pallbearers for a military veteran.Catholic Memorial

Folan says the program opens his students' hearts and gives them a deeper view on the world.

"When you look beyond in that moment, that helps you to see a larger horizon," Folan says. "And that's going to require us to have a preferential treatment for the poor, to care for those who are marginalized, to welcome people into our community."

"And then what does that mean for you as a human being? How are you going to change your outlook?"