“What they do to these ducks…” said 12-year-old Joshua Blumell as he stood with some 25 other protesters on chilly Chapel Street outside the Union League restaurant. “What they do…, and his sentence trailed off, the second half of it conveyed by a pained facial expression and an averted glance at graphic posters of ducks with metal tubes inserted through their opened beaks.
Blumell himself was stoically holding one of those posters as he leaned against a wall near the restaurant’s entrance.
Young Blumell, a student at St. Martin de Porres Academy in the Hill, stood alongsid his mom Bridget Blumell and stepdad Bill McGlone. They were among about two dozen local activists protesting the French restaurant’s continuing to sell foie gras, the top of the food chain duck or goose liver farmed when the birds are force fed rich corn meal through tubes inserted down their throats until their livers swell near to bursting, some six to ten times normal size.
When the animals are slaughtered, often after much suffering, restaurants like Union League sell the “fatted liver” as an appetizer — Union League’s goes for $12.50 — which is one of the icons of French cuisine.
It didn’t appear that Blumell had ever tasted the dish, or that he would want to.
“What they do to these ducks is disgusting.”
Why was a 12-year-old here, albeit with his parents?
“I’m doing my community service,” he answered, and then looked toward his parents to fill in details.
St. Martin de Porres Academy, explained Joshua’s mother, requires community service of an hour a semester for all its students, and Joshua was doing his here.
Well, that wasn’t quite the whole story, chimed in McGlone, who said he is a social worker. “Joshua was at first going to do some work with the Obama campaign event this morning at Yale’s African-American House.”
“Tell the reporter,” said his mother, “what happened.”
“I slept in,” Joshua admitted.
“But I’m here now,” he added with some good-natured impatience.
And he wasn’t through yet. “Afterwards,” said his stepdad, “we’re going to spend an hour at the downtown soup kitchen. It’s going to be a day full of community service.”
“All the kids at the school do it,” said the mom.
“Not so,” said Joshua. “Only the sixth and seventh graders.’
What did Joshua think of the whole idea of doing community service?
“It’s OK,” he said slowly.
“Tell the reporter why,” said his mother. Then Joshua, an agreeable child, who has the bemused look of one who graciously absorbs of lot of not-always-wanted parental advice, recited the credo of his Catholic school based on what’s called the nativity model. It has as one of its components service in the spirit of Martin de Porres, who was canonized for helping the destitute in 16th century Peru.
He recited the whole credo, a brief but moving document, especially to hear at a demonstration about foie gras. It begins with “As a child of God…” and ends with a declaration of commitment to make his community a place of justice and peace.
After a reporter thanked him for the reiteration, Joshua was asked if going to a political event, like the Obama campaign organizing itself for the Pennsylvania primary, counts as community service. Joshua’s stepfather answered that it did because of Obama’s message of hope and service.
And what about his being scheduled by his parents for a full three events, or even two, since he’d slept through the first? The foie gras and the soup kitchen likely exceed an hour. Would that be okay with him?
“Oh sure,” the young man said. He held up his sign a little higher, as people walked by, and looked, and then entered the restaurant.
Previous installments in the Independent’s series on parental involvement in local schools:
Parents Question Skittles Suspension
Parents Want Say On Suspensions
Son Gets Pills; Suspension Policy Targeted
Dad Goes To The Top, Gets Results
Parents, M&Ms Join In Math Lesson
Brandon Aims For The Blue Shirt
Night-Shift Waitress Hangs Up Apron
Dad Meets The Teachers. All Of ‘Em
Ms. Lopez Moves Brandon’s Seat
Night-Shift Waitress Gets Xena To Class On Time
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
Board of Ed To Parents: Get Involved!
Task Force Hones Plan for Kids
The New St. Martin DePorres Comes Home
Good-Bye Recess. Hello Take 10.
