Every Monday morning at 7:45 a.m. during the school year, a long line forms in the school office at Chesterton Academy in Hopkins. 

Most weeks, it stretches into the school entryway and out the front doors. On Jan. 3, 40 students made sure to arrive before the bell rang to signal the start of the school day. 

Why? To be part of a group that, two days later, would get into several vehicles and SUVs, head 15 miles to St. Paul and pray a rosary in the biting cold at Planned Parenthood, so they could make their presence felt as the “pro-life generation.” 

They call themselves “Crusaders for Life,” and are led by a fierce defender of life — and Chesterton parent — Kalley Yanta, a regular at prayer gatherings at Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities for the last 20-plus years. Although Yanta, who came up with the idea during the previous school year and pitched it to administrators, was unable to attend this gathering because of a COVID quarantine, she was there in spirit — and by text — cheering on the students and their parent chaperones. 

Despite the serious nature of the abortion issue and the fight to end the killing of unborn children, this gathering, like all others, was marked by joy. 

Plus, plenty of horn honking. At the prayer gathering, students held signs that read “Honk to End Abortion.” Many motorists obliged, with some laying on their horns for a second or two. There also were occasional blasts from semitrailers, which, in the words of senior Gabriel Schmitz, “shake the whole (Planned Parenthood) building.” 

Although nearly all of the students were shivering in the subzero cold by the end of the final Hail Mary, their passion to fight against abortion remained red hot. The truth is, there would have been more than 40 students at this prayer gathering if Yanta hadn’t capped the list at 40 for safety and logistical reasons.  

Still, that’s more than one-fourth of Chesterton’s student body.

Getting on the list

That’s why there is such a rush every Monday to get to school early. People such as sophomores Claire Lelemsis and Therese

Rivard want to make sure they get on the list every week. Both were part of the first group that went last school year, and have only missed signing up once since then. 

“We kind of have a system,” said Lelemsis, whose older brother Dominic, a senior, also comes. “Usually, whichever one of us gets to school first gets in line and then signs us both up. There’s always a huge line coming out of the office — big traffic in the hallway — because so many kids are so passionate about this. It’s such a community and bonding experience with our whole generation, and showing people that we are the pro-life generation.” 

The weekly prayer gatherings also express the school motto: “Cultura Vitae” (Culture of Life). This is exactly what Dale Ahlquist, school co-founder and current interim headmaster, had in mind when Chesterton Academy opened its doors 14 years ago. 

“When we formed the school, part of our mission was to counteract the culture of death,” said Ahlquist, whose school, the flagship of the Chesterton Schools Network, has 150 students in grades nine through 12. “And so, we’ve always had a pro-life charism (at) the school. … When Kalley came in with this idea, it just resonated wonderfully. I think our only disappointment was that we hadn’t thought of it earlier.” 

At first, only five or six students went every week, Lelemsis recalled. Steadily, the number grew and Yanta had to set a limit due to how many parent-drivers she could recruit every week, plus monitor the students’ safety. Yanta, an experienced pro-life activist and sidewalk counselor, knows that responses can sometimes be negative, and even hostile. 

‘The front lines’

But that does not diminish the students’ enthusiasm. They brave not only occasional rude remarks and gestures, but all kinds of weather, including severe cold Jan. 5, with a windchill below zero, just weeks ahead of Jan. 22 — the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The gathering is all part of an effort to be, as Yanta described, “on the front lines, literally, of the greatest spiritual battle of all time.” 

“It’s so cool,” said Yanta, 56, a mother of six whose son Kolbe, a Chesterton junior, attends the weekly gatherings, as does her husband, Jon. “I love it so much because it gives our kids an opportunity to be bold, to be the hands, the feet, the hearts, the voices, the ears, the eyes, the love of Christ on the sidewalk for these babies and their mamas.” 

She thinks one of the main reasons Crusaders for Life is so popular with Chesterton students is the feeling of empowerment that comes with making the half-hour trip to Planned Parenthood every week. 

“Teenagers often feel like there’s nothing they can actually, tangibly do to make a difference in the world,” she said. “But this is very tangible, especially among people like them who understand the power of prayer.” 

Sophomore Thomas DeReuil went for the first time last April. He learned later that, while the group was there, two different cars pulled into the facility, each with an abortion-minded woman inside. Both cars later drove out, and people inside the car told Chesterton students they changed their minds about abortion and decided not to go through with it because of the students’ presence there. 

“That just really hit me,” said DeReuil, whose older brother John Paul, a senior, also goes to the rosary gatherings. “They’re real lives and you’re actually saving them. It’s just so powerful and crazy.” 

All grades unite

One byproduct of the event is the chance for people from all four grade levels at the school to get to know each other. All are on equal footing on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood, and freshmen through seniors enjoy and appreciate the chance to pray together in the fight against abortion. 

“I love seeing the younger grades going, too,” Schmitz said. “It’s just a great experience. I think it’s very important that the younger generation gets more involved with it.” 

It also brings together parents and students. Jeff Mitchell rearranges his work schedule at his real estate business to come to Chesterton and serve as a driver, along with his wife, Erin. Sometimes, he leads the rosary, as he did Jan. 5, and often goes with daughters Elizabeth, a junior, and Grace, a freshman. In the parking lot as students gathered before leaving, he sprinkled holy water on students as they passed by, another part of the event. 

“It’s great,” he said. “It’s a wonderful thing to serve Christ and to bring that joy and light in(to) the world right now.” 

‘Life changing’

Freshman Jack Berg started going in the fall of this school year and tries to make it every week. Occasionally, his older brother Fred also comes. Jack signed up just two weeks into the school year and, like DeReuil, was hooked immediately. 

“It was just life changing,” he said. “It’s my favorite part of each week. I’m so thankful for it and that this school takes the time to do that.” 

Berg has five siblings, and his mother has had several miscarriages, he said, so he has firsthand experience with both the life and death of unborn children. 

“When I see a baby, the amount of joy that comes to my face is unbelievable,” he said. “And to think of that life being taken every day in multiple (abortion) clinics all around the world, that’s just a dagger in my heart.” 

With a possible overturning of Roe v. Wade on the horizon, there is hope that efforts like this could turn the tide on abortion and return the nation to a culture of life. 

To be sure, the culture of life is alive and flourishing at Chesterton Academy, and is taking giant steps forward week by week as students take part in Crusaders for Life. 

“These students have such a wonderful enthusiasm that is infectious to the whole community,” Ahlquist said. “They show the enthusiasm when they’re lining up (outside the school office) to sign up. And, when they’re on their way to the Planned Parenthood clinic, when they’re outside on the sidewalk, praying and holding up their signs. It’s just always this great joy and enthusiasm. But, when they come back, when they return to school for the second part of the day, they are in the upper stratosphere. They are always so happy when they get back. And, they always have a good story to tell.”

The making of a ‘militant holy water woman’

Kalley Yanta has the bright, beaming smile of a TV news anchor, which she was in the 1990s for KMSP TV in St. Paul.

Today, she has a fierce, determined passion to go with it, which drives her — literally — to the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul every week to lead a group of 40 students at Chesterton Academy in Hopkins. There they pray for an end to abortion and for a change of heart for pregnant women seeking one.

“We bless each child (Chesterton student) with holy water on the way there, either at school before they pile into all the vehicles or as they’re piling out of the vehicles there,” she said. “I’m the militant holy water woman: Do not pass me until you get a blessing because we need it.”

Yanta, 56, grew up in what she called “a pro-choice family.” Even though she didn’t think she could ever abort a child, she sided with pregnant women who wanted to make that choice. Like thousands of other abortion rights supporters, she held fast to this simple, yet faulty, rationalization: “Who’s the government to tell a woman what to do with her body? That’s just not right. That should be her decision.”

Yanta said that was her position as a young woman. “I really believed that.”

Enter Mother Teresa. In 1997, just months before the eventual saint’s death, Yanta went to Kolkata, India, for 10 days to volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity and witness the heart-wrenching poverty that resulted in thousands of people dying alone on the streets. It touched her deeply, and it changed the trajectory of her life forever.

“The sanctity of human life really hit me when I was there,” said Yanta, who recalled holding a 4-year-old boy so shriveled by malnutrition that she thought he was only about 18 months old. “I’ve never, ever seen anything like that up close and personal. And, it hit me like a brick wall: These are precious children.”

That point was further implanted on July 6, 1999, with the birth of her first child, Isaac.

“It was a very long labor and difficult delivery, and all of that just disappeared when I looked at him and realized this huge gift God had just placed in my arms,” Yanta said.

As she sat in her hospital bed thanking God for this “miracle of life,” her thoughts turned to pregnant women who go to abortion clinics not realizing the gift they carry inside their bodies. That led to a simple prayer: “Lord, I want to do something.”

Not long after her delivery, Yanta became a sidewalk counselor at abortion clinics, a volunteer ministry she has done off and on since, along with raising her children and serving as a pro-life speaker.

And, prayer warrior. That role was reinforced by an experience she had while talking with another pro-life activist in the early 2000s. The woman brought up the name of a local abortionist, Dr. Mildred Hanson, who had performed abortions from the time of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalizing abortion in the U.S.

The woman urged Yanta to start praying for Hanson. Yanta, in turn, passed that request along to her mother during a phone conversation. Her mom asked for the name of the doctor.

“I said, ‘Dr. Mildred Hanson,’” Yanta recalled. “And, there was silence.”

Yanta then learned it was Hanson who had delivered her. “It gave me big chills,” she said.

It also led to a bold move that Yanta hoped would lead to a change of heart for the abortion doctor. At the suggestion of a teenage girl following a speech Yanta gave, Yanta wrote a letter to Hanson, in which she thanked her for bringing her into the world. She included a rosary, a copy of the Divine Mercy Chaplet prayer and a plea for her to change her mind about abortion.

To her surprise, Yanta got a reply.

“She wrote back to me and thanked me for those gifts,” Yanta said. “And she said, ‘I’m not Catholic, but my mom and grandma were, and I’m familiar with the recitation of the rosary. So, thank you. Have a beautiful Christmas.’”

All Yanta could think to say after reading the letter was, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I couldn’t believe she wrote back,” said Yanta, who belongs to Holy Family in St. Louis Park with her husband, Jon, and their children. “And, the fact that she thanked me was so amazing.”

According to the Rewire News Group, a pro-abortion news outlet, Hanson continued to perform abortions until the year before her death in 2015 at 91.

“I have no idea whether or not she ever did repent or make things right with God,” Yanta said. “But I am very hopeful that she did. And, I do pray for her frequently.”