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Youth proudly wear their volunteerism
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Times photo: Brian Gray Like many of the volunteers at Saturdays Apostolate to the Handicapped event, Rylee Covert, left, and Kayla Buttke, both from Brodhead, wore their Campions Champions shirts. The shirts help people think about the handicapped, their special day and also about the events founder, Monsignor Thomas Campion.
MONROE - "Campion's Champions."

The shirts can be seen just about everywhere in Monroe and around Green County.

In fact, one story, which may or may not be true, has been told that a person from the area saw someone in New York City wearing the shirt and immediately approached him to learn that he, too, was from Green County.

The shirts are like a uniform to a club that is neither exclusive nor secret. It's a club anyone can join as long as they help out at an Apostolate to the Handicapped event.

Kids from Monroe, Brodhead, Albany and almost every other community volunteer to help guests at the annual event.

Kayla Buttke and Rylee Covert, both 14 and from Brodhead, were two of the 22 teens from St. Rose and St. Patrick's churches in Brodhead and Albany who came to help Saturday.

It was Buttke's second year as a volunteer.

"The older people make me smile," she said when she had a few minutes to rest. "I get a new boyfriend every year. Each year they ask me if I have a boyfriend and when I tell them 'no' they tell me they'll be my boyfriend."

Covert volunteered for the first time.

"It's nice to be able to help other people. It makes you feel good."

Like the other volunteers, they proudly wore their "Campion's Champions" shirts.

"I have four or five of them," Buttke said.

She sees the shirts almost everywhere she goes, she added.

They wear them because they enjoy helping other people and being part of the event founded by Monsignor Thomas Campion, who enjoys seeing the teens volunteering their time and proudly displaying shirts that call attention to the handicapped.

They honor both the day and the man who started the Apostolate to the Handicapped.

"Monsignor Campion has led us in Christ to a deeper concern for the handicapped. Thank you for pointing the way," Bishop William Bullock said during his homily Saturday.