CAMDEN, N.J. — Patrick Keenan, a former Franciscan Volunteer Minister, was recently featured in an article in the National Catholic Reporter.
The story focused on Keenan’s place of employment, Hopeworks ‘N Camden, an organization that strives to end the poverty cycle by providing job training for youths in Web site development and geographic information systems.
Keenan, 26, a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and classmate of student friar Daniel Horan, OFM, first learned of Hopeworks when he volunteered at St. Francis Inn, the Province’s soup kitchen in Philadelphia. Today, he is formation director for Hopeworks.
“I knew that when I saw Hopeworks, this was a place that could break that cycle, that could create a different world, a different space in which youth could really discover who they are without the pressures and demands from that outside world that’s very hard and unyielding,” said Keenan in the Nov. 19 article by Tom Roberts.
Formation, Keenan said, “comes from a religious sense, from the Jesuit communities. But formation is like Play-Doh. You take the can, turn it upside down and you’ve got this lump. What everyone does is roll it around in their hands, play with it, come up with some ideas, mush it back together, shape something new.”
Hopeworks ‘N Camden recently redesigned the Web site of Camden’s St. Anthony of Padua Church, according toJud Weiksnar, OFM, pastor.
The story, “A place that breaks the poverty cycle,” is available online.