Anne

Anne's Story

"A lot of people view volunteering as a sacrifice. But I gained much more than I could have imagined when I gave a year of service after graduation to the MercyWorks program," said program manager Anne Althoff, reflecting on her volunteer experience six years ago. She has worked full time with kids at Mercy Home ever since.

The Texas native had completed an international service trip to an orphanage in Belize after graduating with a degree in English literature from Washington University in St. Louis. At a time when most recent college grads begin their first job hunt, Althoff went looking for something else. She wanted her next step to be a year-of-service program. A friend told her about Mercy Home from a volunteer fair and suggested that she give them a call. Shortly afterward, Althoff made the trip northward to Chicago and visited Mercy Home, where she fell in love with our MercyWorks program, which at the time was not yet a year old. 

"It was really unique from a lot of the other programs I looked at because you get to work directly with the youth," Althoff said. She also felt instantly at home and found the entire Mercy Home community especially welcoming, not just to her, but to the other six members with whom she would share community, friendship, and support over the course of a year.

Althoff was particularly drawn to MercyWorks because of four of the program's five articulated core values: spirituality, social justice, simple living and community. Althoff admits, however, that she was surprised later to learn how much she would come to benefit from the fifth core value: professional development.

"My plan was to complete a year of service with MercyWorks and then go on to become a teacher," Althoff said. But her role as a youth care worker was so personally fulfilling and gave her such great on-the-job experience, that she decided to dedicate her career to helping care for kids and their families. While working at Mercy Home, she earned her masters in social work and now manages two residential programs for younger boys at Mercy Home.

She first learned during the MercyWorks year that you can begin to help change a young person's life and help them learn to have healthy relationships when you show them that you care about them no matter what. "Kids will test you, and they may do things to try to see if you will give up on them. But when you don't, when you stick it out with them, they let you in and the work can begin," Althoff said. 

Today, Althoff especially enjoys seeing the lasting impact she and her Mercy Home co-workers have on young people when she catches up with them at AfterCare events and reunions.