Not yet finished with his freshman year, Brendan Lyden’16 already shows the great qualities of a natural-born leader and a man for others. In an effort to help “The Hope for Ariang Foundation” build a school in southern Sudan, Lyden started a community service project called “The Bricks of Hope” to bring Jesuit into the effort.
Brendan learned about this wonderful opportunity when he went on a Jesuit endorsed trip to Washington, D.C to attend the “Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.” “I attended the trip with Mr. [Erik] Burrell, Mr. [Rich] Perry, as well as some seniors and juniors. While we were there, the creator of the foundation, Gabriel Bol Deng, gave a speech about his inspirational life and how he suffered through his village being burnt down to walking across the desert and the Nile to growing up in America and finally creating this organization to help his people back at his village in Ariang, Sudan receive an education.”
To start out, the foundation’s headquarters, in Syracuse, NY, sent Brendan 500 cardboard bricks. During lunch, Brendan began to sell these bricks representing an Ariang classroom to students and faculty for $1 each, and these cardboard bricks were pasted on the wall above the Freshman Steps. For the past few weeks, Brendan has been advertising the sale of these bricks during lunch, and his progress is evident as the wall above the Freshman steps becomes more and more covered with these reminders.
Brendan has showed signs of being committed to working for justice for a while now, taking every opportunity to “do virtually anything” to help out his fellow man. Growing up, he realized that “not everyone is as fortunate as we are” and that people have enormous needs all around the world, needs that seem very basic to us like education, clean water, and a safe home.
Since then he dedicated himself to “giving back to a community that might not have the same opportunities that I have,” he said. Recognizing their lack of education, Lyden took matters into his own hands and started this amazing effort.
Logging numerous hours not only in this project, Lyden has “performed over 100 service hours each year for the past 2 years and [hopes] to continue that trend throughout [his] Jesuit career.” His community service experience will definitely expand Jesuit’s commitment to social justice and bring other Jesuit students to recognize and help in various causes like this one.
If you would like to know more about The Hope for Ariang Foundation, please visit their website at: http://hopeforariang.org/
