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About one hundred people participated in a March for Life in downtown Hillsdale sponsored by St. Anthony’s Catholic Church last week.
Rich Moeggenberg, a parishioner at the church who is also the college’s director of financial aid, helped organize the march.
He said he reached out to leaders in the Hillsdale College for Life club to advertise the march. Senior Ethan Richards, a long time member of the club and a Hillsdale local, also worked hard to encourage participation.
“I got a hold of as many people as I could,” Richards said. “I emailed the people from the club that weren’t going to D.C., friends of mine, I went to Catholic Society, Lutheran Society, and tried to recruit from there.”
“I would say it was a 50/50 split between college affiliates and community members,” Richards said. “Some older, some younger, but there was a good split of people. It was really encouraging actually, to know that it wasn’t just college people coming into Hillsdale and pushing this. There are people in the community willing to stand up for it.”
Father David Reamsnyder of St. Anthony’s opened the march with prayer and college chaplain Adam Rick gave a benediction, Moeggenberg said. Throughout the march, the participants sang hymns which contributed to the reverent atmosphere, according to Richards.
“It was an hour that we gave to God and it was prayerful,” Moeggenberg said. “And that’s what the local march is about.”
Richards said he enjoyed participating in the march and was moved by the faithfulness of the participants.
“There was a very rich sense of community,” Richards said. “I think that’s a really important part of doing pro-life work is encouraging one another and having that rich community, especially when so many people are opposing you and what you stand for.”
St. Anthony’s began putting on the local march for life last year.
“When COVID hit and the march was basically canceled or went virtual, the president of the local chapter of the right to life movement had an idea and said, ‘Hey, why don’t we just do a local March?’” Moeggenberg said.
The 2021 Hillsdale March for Life was successful, especially in terms of student participation, Moeggenberg said, so he said he felt encouraged that it would go well this year.
“I wanted to try again because it’s good when you have youth down there,” Moeggenberg said.
