History of the Mother Jones House
A cooperative between The Laughlin Chapel and Wheeling Jesuit University
Twelve years ago students at Wheeling Jesuit University formed a community, off campus in East Wheeling, devoted to service. The video above shows Jonathan Kolks, the 2011-2012 house mentor explaining the history of the Mother Jones House and the partnership with Laughlin Chapel.
| In the late 1990’s Wheeling Jesuit University and Laughlin Chapel proposed to establish a service-learning scholarship house in East Wheeling, the poorest neighborhood in Wheeling, WV, for WJU students. The neighborhood would benefit from the positive role models, and the students would benefit with service-learning opportunities.
They proposed that Laughlin Chapel provide ten WJU students a place to live in exchange for a minimum of ten hours of weekly service , and a weekly community dinner in their home. The "on common grounds" proposal later became known as the Mother Jones House, named after the activist who had a large impact in the Wheeling area. The Laughlin Chapel applied for a grant to prepare a house for the students, and the first group of students moved into the house in the year 2000. The students have the opportunity to participate in a variety of neighborhood outreach programs, but particularly the Laughlin Chapel after school program that provides a safe haven, tutoring, and activities for the youth of Wheeling. The full proposal detailing the cooperative can be downloaded in PDF format read using the following link.
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