Corcoran Austbarr
Operation Mato Grasso (OMG) is an international group devoted to serving the poor and growing in fellowship. The Mount houses one of the five OMG groups in the U.S., though there are over 100 mission sites in Italy, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
In 1966, a priest by the name of Fr. Ugo asked a group of young Italians to travel with him to Brazil to assist Fr. Pietro in building a school and health center over the summer. Though by the summer's end they were still not done, many volunteers continued to work while the rest went back to Italy to raise money for the ongoing mission.
OMG came to the U.S. in 2014 when a man named Mateo decided to bring the operation from Peru to Baltimore with his family. He described this transition to be “challenging,” as he needed to adapt the missions to a new environment, but his work has not gone unappreciated.
Mateo went on his first mission when he was 21 years old, aiding the elderly by doing field work and building schools, even acting as a director at one of the schools his group helped to build. Now, Mateo aides OMG at the Mount, occasionally hosting weekend camps to do missions for those in need.
Clover Satchell (C '24), a member of the Mount’s OMG group, first encountered OMG while they were making icons, which are sold during the Lenten season to fundraise for the missions. Satchell remarked, “I really liked everyone getting creative in the spirit of helping others,” and believes that OMG teaches you a lot about serving those in need.
The Mount’s OMG group was started in 2022 by alumni Hunter Luers, who is currently serving on a two-year long mission in Peru. Yasier Herrera (C’ 24) has been with OMG since its founding, and continues to sing its high praises, calling it a “familial community,” that “reminds you of what love is about when it comes to mission and service.”
OMG too seeks to invite young people to follow Christ’s call of giving back to the poor, in whatever capacity they can. Luers would agree, as he writes in the article “The Village Idiot”: “When young people do join and trust in the mission of OMG, they are transformed through friendship and hard work into on-fire missionary disciples who strive to share with all the love and faith they have received.”
Meghan Fleming, a Mount grad who has since taken over for Luers, believes OMG “ties perfectly” with the Mount’s mission statement of living lives of significance in service to God and others. Fleming calls OMG a “way of life” that puts the mission statement into action. One of OMG’s mottos, “Enough words, let’s get to work,” exemplifies this explicitly.
Being a part of OMG “really transforms your life, if you let it” as said by one of OMG’s few C’28 members. Open to all students and dedicated to serving those in need, OMG seeks to promote and honor Ugo’s words: “We have to help. We have to show it with how we live our lives.”
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