Shoeshine boys
Boys as young as 5 work the streets to earn a living in Quito, Ecuador
By Brad Reynolds, S.J.
In Quito, Ecuador, a monument marks the site of the equator: La Mitad del Mundo or, “the middle of the world.” In the past 30 years, more than 20 young Marquette alumni have been drawn there — to serve as volunteers at the Working Boys Center, a facility dedicated to improving the lives of some of Ecuador’s poorest families.
The Working Boys Center staff of more than 200 people work with 400 families in two locations, providing a grade-school education to each member of the center’s families (adults included); three meals a day; medical and dental care; and training in a craft or trade. Last year, the staff included 10 volunteers from the United States, three of whom were Marquette graduates.
Before coming to Quito, Pat Hurley, Bus Ad ’03, was snowboarding in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and trying to decide what to do with his life. He figured it was time to come off the slopes, but to do what?
“I saw my friends making a lot of money sitting in front of a computer all day,” he says, “and they weren’t happy.”
He looked into the Peace Corps and then remembered a summer he spent at the Working Boys Center. He wrote Rev. John Halligan, S.J., to ask if he could return.
Clare Costigan, Arts ’05, heard about the center and found the idea of working with Quito’s shoeshine boys intriguing. “When you talk to a former volunteer,” she says, “it’s immediately about the kids.”
She recruited Marcella Turner, Bus Ad ’05. Both women wrote to Father Halligan to ask for volunteer applications.
The three landed in Quito not quite sure what was in store for them.
 The center’s volunteers live in community with Father Halligan and two Sisters of Charity of the Blessed
Virgin Mary of Dubuque, Iowa. Each volunteer has a private bedroom with bath, but everything else is shared. The evening meal is scheduled so that everyone can be present. Before they set out for Ecuador, Father Halligan tells volunteers that commitment to the community is essential: “A community is made, it doesn’t just happen,” he explains.
Spirituality is a major part of life here. Daily Mass, while not obligatory, is attended by most of the participating families. Father Halligan stresses the importance of this spiritual mission: “Volunteers who agree to serve with us must be persons motivated by faith in Jesus and, consequently, consider themselves sent by Jesus to participate in the center’s programs.”
The volunteers work 12-hour days. Costigan taught English to kindergarten children, art to the children in the primary and secondary classes, and Spanish to the adults. She also taught crafts, cooking and computer skills. “I really enjoyed the work,” she says, “as long and as hard as it seemed sometimes.”
One of the trades taught is baking and Hurley, with Marquette degrees in business and marketing, was put in charge of the bakery. After completing extensive renovations on the bakery facilities, the center’s participants are now turning out bread and other baked goods for sale in the center’s own shop. Hurley also taught English to children at the center.
Founded in 1964 by the Jesuit John Halligan and Sister Mary Miguel Conway, BVM, the center serves Quito’s “shoeshine boys” and their families, estimated to include 100,000 boys, some as young as 5, working in the city’s streets shining shoes, washing cars and selling gum to help support their families. The boys provide up to 85 percent of the household income. Some of these families survive on two dollars a day. Although Father Halligan and Sister Conway’s original intent was to help kids, they soon realized they needed the whole family’s involvement to make a difference in their lives.
About the writer
Brad Reynolds, S.J., is Jesuit artist-in-residence at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. Author of four novels, Father Reynolds has also published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including National Geographic, America, Alaska and American Scholar.
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Turner taught English and health and helped the girls make crafts and food to sell. She also taught reading and writing to the adults.
“They throw us right in,” Turner says. And while she admits she did not have a great appreciation for children before she arrived in Quito, her attitude changed as she came to know the working boys and their families. “All my life I’ve been given things, and it was so easy,” she says. “But here it is different.”
Most of the families served by the center live in the poorest parts of Quito. Their houses are often one- or two-room shelters that house families of four to eight members.
Volunteering to teach and help the poor can provide personal satisfaction. But during the year, Hurley, Costigan and Turner realized something much more profound was happening. They found themselves becoming part of the Working Boys Center family.
Both Hurley and Costigan have signed on for another year as volunteers in Ecuador.
“You have to make the decision that you’re not here for yourself,” Costigan says. “College life is self-focused. But here, you grow to see outside yourself. There’s so much we have to give back.”
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