Kevin Kelly/Key photo Ernie Boehner, who has led adult volunteer recruitment for the upcoming National Catholic Youth Conference, speaks with Kansas City, Mo., Police Capt. Rick Smith at an Oct. 31 orientation session at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

Munoz was especially talkative during early morning workouts in the exercise room at Kansas City, Mo., police headquarters, where she works as administrative assistant to Deputy Chief Cy Ritter.

“To me,” Munoz told The Catholic Key during a break in an Oct. 31 adult volunteer orientation at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, “it reaffirms my faith in today’s young people. I still get goosebumps talking about it.”

One of the sets of ears she bent belonged to Capt. Rick Smith, a member of St. Thomas More Parish in southwest Kansas City.

She told him for 10 years how much the NCYC had changed the lives of young people, but also herself, as she volunteered as a chaperone to four difference National Catholic Youth Conferences for youths from her Our Lady of Guadalupe-Sacred Heart Parish on Kansas City’s west side — “The best side,” she quickly adds.

“The first I heard about NCYC was from Irene 10 years ago,” Smith said. “I wanted to get involved.”

Well, he’s involved. Smith was appointed police liaison to the NCYC planning committee, and in that capacity, he has planned street closings, bus parking for 20,000 participants, and gotten all the necessary city permits.

“If we have an MVP (Most Valuable Player) on our committee, it’s Capt. Rick Smith,” said Ernie Boehner, a member of Holy Trinity Parish in Lenexa, Kan., who serves as adult volunteer recruiter and coordinator.

Munoz said her own children were not quite old enough to attend the last NCYC in Kansas City in 1997. But that conference lit a fire under youth ministry on both sides of the state line, and two years later, she volunteered to take a group of Guadalupe-Sacred Heart teens to St. Louis for the 1999 conference.

She also chaperoned parish youth at the 2001 NCYC in Indianapolis, 2003 in Houston, 2005 in Atlanta, and 2007 in Columbus. She was hooked, as were other adults at the orientation who are only too happy to volunteer to ride herd on thousands of teenagers.

Robert and Lynne Madeo, members of St. Peter Parish in Kansas City, Mo., sent their children, including Elizabeth, to the 1997 NCYC in Kansas City.

Elizabeth is now youth minister at Church of the Annunciation in Kearney, Mo.

“You see all these kinds encouraging each other and celebrating their love of Christ,” Lynne Madeo said.

“We love kids,” Robert Madeo added. “You see this wave of new Christians coming.”

Nancy Beaty, now director of adult formation at St. Mark Parish in Independence, Mo., attended the 1997 conference as a youth minister. This year, she is back for more.

“It’s nuts, but it is a good nuts,” she said. “My kids are grown, but they benefitted from youth ministry when they were growing up.”

Boehner told the adult volunteers that no matter what their specific assignments will be, they all have three main jobs: Provide a safe environment, provide a safe environment, and provide a safe environment.

The adults should provide a thousand sets of eyes and ears to make sure the conference goes off smoothly and safely, Boehner said. And their reward won’t only be reserved for heaven.

“If you have never been to an NCYC, the energy, the excitement, you won’t believe,” he said. “The energy and faith of these kids is so inspiring, you will be rewarded tenfold.”

Smith said that the Kansas City, Mo., police department will concentrate 12 uniformed, on-duty officers, plus off-duty officers, to the five city block area between the conference sites at the H. Roe Bartle Convention Center and the Sprint Center.

But they will still need the help of adult volunteers.

“The police department can’t do this alone,” he said. “We still need adults telling the kids, ‘Hey, slow down a bit.’ But if there is any kind of problem, just get hold of a police officer. They won’t be hard to find.”

Smith said it hasn’t been easy planning the logistics of moving 20,000 people across downtown safely. But for him, he said, it was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss.

“I’m involved in so many things where you can’t express your faith,” Smith said.

“This has been a wonderful experience to bring my faith and my profession and merge them together,” he said.

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