Cal Wilkins, a junior at Saint Joseph High School in Metuchen, NJ, first attended JusticeworX in Trenton in 2015. This past year, he and his classmates served in Dunlow, West Virginia. He is pictured to the right, in white, with his group. Wilkins describes encountering the people in Appalachia and witnessing the conditions in which they live as eye-opening. "Everyone was grateful and happy when they got food and supplies from the food bank." The gratification he received from knowing he made a difference in someone else's life, in addition to the other positive memories of the trip, inspired Cal to continue to do similar work in his own community after returning home from JusticeworX. 

Wilkins’s parents were supportive of his commitment to service and they started taking Cal and his younger brother to a local soup kitchen where the boys served meals to people in need. It was not long before their parents joined them- turning volunteering into as family event. When the holidays drew near, the Wilkins family offered to help serve a hot meal to people without somewhere to go on Christmas. They even inspired extended family to join them, thus truly living out the Christmas spirit. 

Cal plans to continue volunteering and hopes to make a career of helping people in any way possible. He wants to make the world a better place, and he already has!  The team at CFJ is positive that we will hear more about Cal Wilkins’s involvement in social services in the future. Thank you for living out our mission, Cal, and spreading the worX spirit!