‘I grew up in a Catholic family ... it was just expected of me to give back’

It was a life-altering summer for 16-year-old Emma Murphy.

And the Althoff Catholic High School student said a counselor set her up for it.

“My sophomore year, my counselor brought me down and she said, ‘I have this application. I selected you. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to, but I’m just saying a lot of the kids have come back from it saying that it’s changed their lives,’” Emma said.

The application was for a regional event through the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership of Illinois. That it changes lives is “literally an understatement,” according to Emma.

“It completely alters your life perspective on how you can make a difference,” she said.

From the regional event, Emma was one of two students awarded a scholarship to attend HOBY’s international event. She didn’t have to travel far — it took place in Chicago — but she met other teens from around the world, including Iraq, Argentina and Taiwan.

Before this summer, Emma says she didn’t know service was her passion.

“I grew up in a Catholic family; I went to Catholic grade school. ... It was just expected of me to give back to the community,” she said.

In fact, Emma admits she was volunteering for the wrong reasons in the past, like many teens do, to make her parents happy or put something on her college applications. That’s all changed since she’s returned from the international event, called the World Leadership Congress.

“I want to be challenging myself all the time to ask myself, ‘What can I do to make this person’s life a little better?’ even if it’s just saying, ‘Hello,’” Emma said.

She suggests “casual service” for anyone not sure about how to give back.

“It doesn’t have to be planning a 5K to raise money. That takes months and months of planning,” she said. “It can be hanging out with friends and being like, ‘Hey, Memorial Hospital is right next to us. Let’s call them and see if they have a children’s unit. If they do, would they feel comfortable if we made some cards for them?’ It takes five minutes. And if you have a small group of friends, four cards can brighten a little kid’s day.”

For Emma, standing idly by isn’t going to cut it now.

“I’m not comfortable sitting around,” she said. “I want to make a change. I want to leave a legacy. I want to accomplish things in life and I am determined to start now and not wait until the opportunities come. I want to create my own opportunities.”

And that’s just what she’s doing at school this year.

Emma is working with friends to start a new service club at Althoff that will get her classmates talking about global issues and taking action in the community in simple ways. She’s also working with her science teacher, Matt Morris, on a project that could potentially solve a big issue: water purification using algae.

“I just really love my science teacher. He’s awesome,” Emma said. “He’s super passionate about it, too, so we’re just trying to see where this project goes. It’s just the beginning of the year, so hopefully we get that done.”

The project is a combination of two things that Emma loves: service and science.

“I love science and then learning about that problem about a lack of clean water in other countries, I’m like, ‘Oh, maybe I can use this and set up this, and maybe one day in the future, we could take that to these countries and completely change the way they live,’” Emma said.

Q: Is “casual service” what you hope to do with the new club that you’re starting at Althoff?

A: “We’re going to talk about world problems basically, so huge problems that not a lot of teenagers are talking about and are pretty much ignoring; That way, when they actually go into the world, they have an idea of the reality of what it is. Whether it’s dealing with being a minority or the Black Lives Matter movement or food and water insecurity and gender inequity, just major problems like that, that obviously one teenager in Belleville, Illinois, cannot solve, but if we...have a bunch of kids from one school talk about it...and what our opinions are and stay calm, put all egos aside, all political views aside, and just be like, ‘This is the humane way to act. This is the kind way to act. This is what we want to do with this. This is the problem; what can we as teenagers do to help solve that in our school and our situation?’

We just want to get kids in the mindset that you have a voice and just because you’re 16 or younger, that doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of inflicting change in your society and your school. That’s basically what the club would be, and we want to include service in that because we feel like if we’re giving back to our community, we can show that we are bigger than these problems, that we can overcome them by simply (volunteering). Even if it’s just writing a letter to veterans or something like that, it makes a difference and it makes someone’s life better.”

Q: What was the World Leadership Congress that you attended this summer?

A: “To attend that, you had to have gone to a HOBY local seminar, so ... earlier this summer, I went to HOBY ILCS, which is Illinois Central South. You can either apply or be selected by your counselor. I was selected by my counselor to go. I had no idea what it was. Basically, it’s a four-day leadership seminar where you just are pushed out of your comfort zone completely and are given all of these opportunities and challenges on how to develop yourself as a better leader and to show you ways that you don’t have to have necessarily the label as a leader. You don’t have to be the president of this club; You can lead from behind the scenes basically.

The World Leadership Congress was 400 kids selected from all across the world...gathered together to do a week-long seminar where you’d listen to inspirational speakers and you’d be given talks about college, but...the main focus was ‘find your rhyme and reason.’ They said, ‘You know your what, but we’re challenging you to ask you your why.’ Every situation you do, you should always ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Find your why. Why are you here? What are you supposed to do with your life? That was the biggest challenge for WLC.

It was cool because you had to be selected from your seminar to go, so I was at my local seminar, at the closing ceremony, they announced two people that were given a scholarship to attend this, and I was one of them. There was not more than 10 people from your state, so you kind of walked in knowing no one. ... I had someone from Argentina and someone from Taiwan in my personal group, so I got to know them really well.

It was just such a cool experience to get to talk to people from all across the world about their opinions on world problems and even on America’s problems, their political views.”

Q: Is there an example of something you learned or were surprised by talking to these people from across the world?

A: “A funny one was the food: They were very surprised about the food (in America) because they noticed a lot of grease.

Something that I was actually really taken aback by: ... We had a list of world leaders — there was just their pictures — and we were challenged to name as many as we could. Almost all of the American students could only name (Vladimir) Putin and the German chancellor and that was about it. All of the international students knew every single one or at least more than two. That was extremely impressive ... I had to step aside for a second and think that they’re so much more involved in world politics whereas we have so much going on in America that we only focus on the negatives of the outside world when we should get to know our fellow world leaders because we’re going to eventually be working together. And if we want to actually make some changes, we need to discuss these problems together.”

Q: Have you thought about what your future might hold? What your career might be?

A: “I’m struggling with that, as I’m sure other kids are, especially junior year — it’s college-focused; it’s time to really crack down. ... Choosing what I love and trying to make that work as a career is what I’m trying to do now.”

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not in school?

A: “I love to travel. Over the summer, we just went to Italy and Croatia, which was so much fun. My dad’s in the military, so you can take — a hop is what they call it — basically a free flight on a military aircraft to sometimes other countries and around America. I’ve been so privileged and lucky to have seen so many parts of the world and I’ve loved every second of it.”

Q: What was the best part of your travels this summer?

A: “I got to see Ancient Rome, which was kind of a dream come true because I love history. ... We would look at the (Roman) Forum and it was just like, ‘Woah. That is what made democracy, like that is what created my country. If that wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t be here right now.’”

This story was originally published August 23, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "‘I grew up in a Catholic family ... it was just expected of me to give back’."