ND seniors share home and hearts with reformed convicts
By TERESA FRALISH
Assistant News Editor
The house at 521 South St. Joseph Street looks much like any other off-campus student house. In many ways, Notre Dame seniors Sally Wasmuth and Lauran Sturm, who live in number 521, are typical college students — they balance classes, projects, work, and consider the ever present question of what they are going to do after graduation.
But when friends come to visit these Notre Dame seniors, they encounter a special community uniquely different from most off-campus houses. Wasmuth and Sturm share their home with other former offenders who come from South Bend and other areas throughout the Midwest to live in the diverse community called Dismas House.
"Basically our mission is reconciliation and to be a community and to be positive. The way we bring the offender together with society is across a dinner table," said Maria Kaczmarek, director of the house since 1996. As part of their commitment to living at Dismas House, all residents agree to make a strong effort to attend the evening meal at 6:30 Monday through Thursday.
Wasmuth and Sturm say they have been able to integrate their academic lives and Dismas experiences smoothly.
"We have our own room that we can relax in," said Wasmuth. "I usually find myself hanging out here with other residents."
When they first choose to live at Dismas, residents agree to abide by seven house ground rules that include refraining from the use of drugs and alcohol and smoking outside the house.
"Everybody has a chore," said Kaczmarek. "We do have a Tuesday night meeting that everyone attends where we can work on any kind of problems."
In addition to Wasmuth and Sturm who live at the house permanently, many service groups from Notre Dame and the larger South Bend community come to prepare meals at Dismas and share their lives with the residents since South Bend's Dismas House was first organized in 1986.
"How many bank presidents would sit down with a former offender? But here they do," Kaczmarek said.
In addition to cooking meals, Notre Dame students have offered support to the Dismas program in a wide variety of ways. "They've bought TVs and refrigerators," said Kaczmarek. "When we have a need they've responded. The students at Notre Dame have always responded to the call of justice."
The halfway house for former prisoners is sponsored by Dismas of Michiana, part of the national organization Dismas Inc., a program begun in 1974 that seeks to help former prisoners integrate themselves back into society. Kaczmarek, a full time Dismas staff member, works to coordinate the experiences of all the residents and bring students and former offenders to live at the home.
Both Notre Dame seniors made a year-long commitment this fall to live at the house while attending classes, although students can commit for either a semester or a year. Initially, other service activities and previous visits to the house led Sturm and Wasmuth to consider living at Dismas during their last year in college. Strum, who is from the South Bend area, helped cook dinner for the Dismas residents one evening, an experience that she said sparked her interest in the Dismas program.
"I hung out for a while [and] I just enjoyed talking to different residents," said Wasmuth. "I kept [Dismas] in the back of my mind."
Sturm happened upon a Dismas flyer at the Center for Social Concerns and said the program seemed like it might be for her.
"I thought it sounded really interesting," said Sturm. "I came and visited and sat at dinner and talked to Maria."
Students are a major factor in making Dismas a welcoming and supportive environment, said Kaczmarek.
"Student residence really takes it from a halfway house into actually a community," said Kacmarek. "It has a huge impact."
Kaczmarek said finding students to live at Dismas is sometimes challenging because the Dismas program requires a mature, balanced caring student.
"Students are the hardest to recruit," said Kaczmarek. "I think it takes some uniqueness [and] somebody who isn't prejudiced."
According to the students, the chance to live and learn in a different environment played a large part in their decision to live at Dismas House. "I wanted a different kind of experience senior year," Sturm said. "I was ready to be out of the dorms but I was also ready to live with non-students."
In addition to a unique living experience, Wasmuth also cited the opportunity to live with people of diverse backgrounds as a key part of her decision to live at Dismas House.
"I enjoy living here more because there's more to be learned on a day to day basis," said Wasmuth. "I was also ready to put myself in a different community than what I'd been used to."
Former offenders come to the house through a variety of paths and stay for anywhere between three months to one year, said Kaczmarek. "The average stay is six months. It gives [the former offenders] time to reconnect it gives them time to find a job," she said.
Many residents come to Dismas House through the state system while on parole, but all make a commitment to community living at the home. "You get to meet different people that have different goals and mindsets," said Jessie Snowden, one of the home's residents.
Learning from the diversity of backgrounds and experiences is a main part of the Dismas House opportunity, said the students. "It's different then being in a dorm because you're living with people who sometimes are struggling to find jobs," Sturm said. "[Sally and I] were both a little tired of the pettiness and sometimes the drama about things that really are not dramatic."
Along with shared diversity, the Dismas program helps people learn about themselves and break down traditional barriers, said the students.
"You have to able to not look at the definition of a criminal or an offender as somebody that's that different from yourself," said Wasmuth. "You really do get a better sense of yourself," Sturm said.
When their time at Dismas House ends, Wasmuth and Sturm said they will carry the lessons they have learned into their experiences after graduation.
"You take with you skills on how to see people at eye level and see people for what they have to say and what they have to teach you," said Wasmuth.
Both students intend to continue to make service a part of their lives after they leave Notre Dame.
"I want to do Teach for America or some type of teaching opportunity," said Sturm, who eventually plans on earning a law degree.
Wasmuth said she intends to spend at least the next summer working in New York City with the service program Kids Corporation. "I'm also thinking about going abroad, possibly to Africa," said Wasmuth.
All News Stories for Thursday, November 21, 2002
