[CUA Office of Public Affairs]

                                                                                                                                               

Jan. 22, 2007

 

2007 March for Life Participants Set Out from CUA

 

CUA students gather in front of the Shrine before setting out on the 2007 March for Life.

Catholic University welcomed more than 1,600 young people and their chaperones to campus on the eve of the 34th Annual March for Life on Monday, Jan. 22, in Washington, D.C. The young people spent the night sleeping on the floor before marching through the snowy landscape downtown today.

 

CUA has organized this sleepover for high school students for more than 10 years.

 

Campus Ministry recruited 150 student volunteers to help register the visiting groups, serve as ushers at the National Prayer Vigil for Life on Sunday night and spend the night in the Raymond A DuFour [Athletic] Center to help supervise the visiting teens.

 

Not too long ago, Lauren Heckman, associate campus minister for women’s issues and social justice, was one of those student volunteers. Heckman is a 2002 CUA graduate who marched in the March for Life every year as a student and volunteered as an usher and overnight chaperone.

 

Participating with CUA was her first exposure to the March for Life. “I think it was really awe- inspiring to see the faith communities involved,” she said. “I was aware of the march as a political campaign, but at the vigil I saw the prayer aspect.”

CUA marchers approach the main rally on the Mall.

Almost 1,200 youths camped out on the floor of the DuFour Center, while 100 more slept in the Eugene I. Kane Student Health and Fitness Center and 350 stayed in the Memorial Hall at the Basilica. Heckman said the campus was fully booked for 2007 by Memorial Day of last year.

 

Heckman estimated that 200 CUA students marched with the group organized by Campus Ministry.

 

The annual March for Life, which marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, begins at the National Mall and winds around the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court building. Each year it draws hundreds of thousands of people to downtown Washington.

 

 

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Revised: 1/24/2007

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