Bicentennial
Season of Service
Catholics heed Cardinal’s call to serve
By Christie L. Chicoine
CS&T Staff Writer
Students at Holy Family School in Phoenixville raised nearly $3,500 to
help the family of one of their schoolmates whose home was destroyed in
a fire in late January. The Chester County youngsters also raised $1,200
for pediatric cancer research.
To ensure a hearty Easter dinner for the less fortunate of St. Peter the
Apostle Parish in Philadelphia, students at that parish’s school
collected a variety of food items, which included generous contributions
from parishioners.
And members of SS. Simon and Jude Parish in West Chester, Chester County,
have been leading prison inmates in Bible study and helping homeless women.
Catholics across the Archdiocese have answered Cardinal Justin Rigali’s
call to a heightened level of volunteer service during the eight-week
“Bicentennial Season of Service,” which commemorates the 200th
anniversary of Philadelphia’s founding as a diocese.
Eighth-grader Mackenzie Welsh, the student council president at Holy Family
School, said the student body always tries hard to help others: “We
care. Everybody was really happy that they really helped out.”
The Season of Service was observed from Jan. 5, the feast of St.
John Neumann to March 3, the feast of St. Katharine Drexel, honoring the
Archdiocese’s two canonized saints, who are renowned for their charitable
service to others.
St. Peter the Apostle Parish and school, where the Easter project was
performed, is the site of the National Shrine of St. John Neumann.
At the National Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel in Bensalem, Bucks County,
youth from several Catholic schools and a pro-life home-school group cleaned
the basement of the gift shop, assisted with office work and entertained
the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in song and conversation.
That project, sponsored by the Bucks County division of the archdiocesan
Office for Youth and Young Adults, included students from Archbishop Wood
High School in Warminster, Holy Ghost Preparatory School in Bensalem,
Nazareth Academy High School in Philadelphia, a youth group from St. Bede
the Venerable Parish in Holland and a Catholic pro-life home school group
that meets at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown.
At Sacred Heart School in Havertown, Delaware County, service projects
varied by grade level. Kindergartners cut and sorted coupons for families
of U. S. troops at American bases. Second-graders drew cheerful pictures
and wrote friendly letters to the homebound of the parish. Fifth-graders
made tote bags that included white socks collected by all the grades for
homeless men at St. John’s Hospice in Philadelphia. Eighth-graders
created no-sew blankets for children in hospitals and the elderly in nursing
homes.
Youth from St. Francis-St. Joseph Homes for Children in Bensalem teamed
up with youth from Our Mother of Good Counsel Parish in Bryn Mawr, Montgomery
County. Together, they wrote letters to inmates serving life sentences
at Graterford Prison in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, and made
breakfast bags for homeless individuals.
Back in Chester County, SS. Simon and Jude parishioners have supplied
volunteers and cash donations as well as bedding, clothing and toiletries
for homeless, single women seeking a safe haven through temporary emergency
shelters at various churches in the West Chester area.
The initiative behind the task force to establish the temporary shelters
came from Barbara Kirby, outreach services director at St. Agnes Parish
in West Chester.
St. Agnes Parish hosted the shelter in one of its parish halls for two
weeks. An 18-year-old with no children who sought refuge through the program
expressed her appreciation in a thank- you letter that said, in part:
“I come from an abusive household and have been homeless many times.
… I am working toward a steady job, an apartment and maybe even
a car. While I am getting myself together and working to achieve those
goals, I am thankful to have found somewhere to stay that is warm and
safe. …
“When I first walked [in] … I never wanted to come back. I
didn’t like that I was homeless, and the last thing I needed was
to be judged. … Since then, I have shown up every night. The people
were nice, non-judgmental, and usually have a story of their own to trade
with you.”
For more information, visit the archdiocesan Web site, www.archphila.org
and click on “Bicentennial Season of Service.”
CS&T Staff Writer Christie L. Chicoine may be reached at (215)
587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.org.