Staff Writer 

 Joe Moreshead spent the first half of his life immersed in chlorinated water and is ready to spend the next at the pulpit. The 18-year-old Cheverus High School senior and swim team captain said he will most likely give up his 10-year competitive swimming career as he moves onto college and, eventually, to seminary school.

“Swimming takes a lot of time. It’s not football, there is no off season,” the South Portland resident said. “I’ve had a long run.”

Hours saved by staying out of the pool may come in handy preparing for the next chapter in his life, which Moreshead said took time to visualize.

“When I was a freshman I figured I would be a lawyer,” he said. “By my sophomore year I figured out there was something else other than myself. It’s all about service. I definitely have a different outlook on life than my peers.”

Earlier this month, Moreshead received a “Certificate of Excellence” from the 2009 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards scholarship program. He said the organization could award him $40,000 for college tuition if he is selected to receive the scholarship.

To be eligible for the scholarship high school students must have participated in a community services project “based on criteria such as personal initiative, creativity, effort, impact and personal [growth],” according to a press release issued by Cheverus. To apply, Moreshead said he shared his involvement with the school’s Haiti Solidarity Club, a group formed by his theology teacher in 2006, Moreshead said. 

The group’s primary goals are to “raise awareness about global poverty and to live out the gospel message to help the poor,” according to the release.

When Moreshead wasn’t swimming or tending to his duties at the South Portland community pool, he was advocating for the Fair Trade Awareness program and raising awareness about the Darfur war – an ongoing conflict in western Sudan.

“[The Fair Trade Awareness program] helps workers and farmers get better reimbursement and shares of the companies that they work for,” he said. “It’s really trying to avoid sweatshop labor.”

Participation in the Haiti Solidarity Club went beyond running fundraising tables in 2008, however, when Moreshead and other club members made a week-long missionary service trip to the Dominican Republic, which neighbors Haiti on the caribbean island of Hisplanola. Except for Canada, Moreshead – a Latin student who doesn’t speak a word of Spanish – said it was the first time he had ever left the country.

“We weren’t going there to try to convert somebody, we were going to help out and pay some people the attention they need,” he said. 

While in the Dominican Republic, Moreshead said he and other Haiti Solidarity Club members visited an orphanage where four local women took care of 12 children each day. Although they did not speak the same language, Moreshead said he managed to make personal connections with the children. 

“We tried to have some English lessons, but the next thing you know the kids are jumping all over you. Some could walk, none could really talk. All I had to do was sit there and give them some attention. They were all about my glasses, watch and cell phone,” he said. “We’d look at each other, they’d smile, then I’d smile.”

One day, Moreshead said the group traveled from the local church where he and other high school students were staying to visit natives busy at work in a landfill.

“They spend all day there going through whatever is dropped off that they can use or sell,” he said. “We brought them some food and water.”

Although the poverty took some getting used to, Moreshead said he eventually began to see more than people in desperate need of food, clothing and shelter. 

“They depend on each other and they depend on God. It’s hard to live like that and not have a strong faith,” he said. “They live in poverty, but not misery. In some ways they have more than people in the [United States] have.”

Moreshead said he would have liked to return to the Dominican Republic with the club this year, but the organization decided “to spread the wealth” and send only members who had not been before. To prepare to visit to the Dominican Republic, Moreshead said he would encourage travelers “to be ready to get more than they give” during their stay.

“They are happier in that country than most of us here. Try to take some of that back,” he said.

For Moreshead, life in South Portland may seem far from severe poverty, but he said religion is just as important to him as it was for the people of the Dominican Republic.

“Faith is fundamentally important to me, it’s what drives my education and activities,” he said.

Sometimes Moreshead’s faith mixes with in his student activities; he said he surprised opponents at a state debate team competition by presenting a religious argument based on the theories of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a 13th-century Catholic priest known for his religious theories and philosophies, earlier this month. Moreshead said he challenged his opponents to consider the importance of varying levels of a moral hierarchy Aquinas developed.

“My stance was that we were humans fundamentally and citizens second,” he said. “That was really surprising to them. We were talking about it after and they said it was something they hadn’t really ever run into before.”

Inspired by his great uncle, a retired priest who traveled to churches in northern Maine, Moreshead said he eventually plans on becoming a Catholic priest. He said seminary school is still a long way off, however, as he is already accepted to four different universities, offered a full tuition scholarship at two of them, and awaiting word from Harvard and Yale. 

“I’d like to travel other places, it would be great to get back to the Dominican Republic but nothing’s ever going to work out the way you want it to,” he said. “I’ll probably study theology but things might change if I get into Harvard or Yale.”