By Michael P. Quinlan, Patriot Ledger

For Jim Orcutt, there is a poor side of town everywhere he goes. In frayed apartment buildings, small rooming houses and homeless shelters throughout southeastern Massachusetts he meets people nestled in their worries and fears, barely holding on. Some are filled with quiet desperation or cynical resignation, hovering below the horizon of prosperity that glitters like the polished dream of America. Others are mentally ill people prone to sudden outbursts of confusion or children caught in some painful transition.

“What can we do to help the poor?” asks Orcutt, who with his wife, Terry, founded My Brother’s Keeper, a group devoted to helping the neediest people in society. Since 1988, the Orcutts and a group of volunteers of the ministry have gathered in a Brockton warehouse every day to prepare furniture and household items for delivery to the area’s poorest poor.

“Many of the people we serve have a strong faith in God,” Terry Orcutt says. “These are women who may have escaped an abusive relationship, unwed teenage mothers, people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, or old folks with no one left on this earth to bring a message of love and hope. Very often we find a mother and her children living in an empty apartment. They may have food stamps from the government, but no one to give them a refrigerator or a bed for their children.”

The group accepts no government funding for its work, but instead relies entirely on donations from local institutions and individuals. The volunteers include accountants, teachers, printers, priests and carpenters. They are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim.

And there are young men like Erich Miller and Octavio Martin, both graduates of the University of Notre Dame, who have set aside their careers to work at My Brother’s Keeper. They are part of the Holy Cross Associates Program, a volunteer program that sends college graduates into the world of the poor. Both men work 40-hour weeks, collecting used furniture from college dorms or food from local churches, organizing the warehouse, making deliveries and answering phones.

Miller, a business major, and Martin, with a degree aerospace engineering, are young mentors to a new generation of college students who are about to embark on a unique new program. Starting next year, My Brother’s Keeper will have its headquarters on Stonehill College’s campus in Easton, part of an effort to bring Catholic/Christian service to Catholic colleges.

Outside the building will stand a statue of Jesus washing the feet of Peter, with the inscription “To lead is to Serve.”

“I can think of nothing better than for students to walk to class each morning and pass by My Brother’s Keeper,” said Stonehill College President the Rev. Bartley MacPhaidin, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. “It will remind them that a Catholic education also means recognizing the obligation we have to help God’s poorest children. Compassion, charity and humility are guiding principles of all religions, and need to be re-asserted in our time.”

“Many college students come from affluent homes, and ale rarely exposed to the invisible sub-culture of people living on society’s edge,” Jim Orcutt says. “What they find poor people value most is not the furnishings we bring, but the comfort of knowing that someone cares. It gives students a new perspective on what matters in life.”

On Nov. 29 the students and volunteers, along with college and town officials, gathered on Stonehill College’s campus to consecrate the ground where the ministry will be built. They expressed thanks for what they have by praying together, and then went back into their delivery truck to continue their work. Having looked into the eyes of people neglected and languishing at the end of the American century, they have come to understand the rewards of a college education.