Fundraising

We will have a sale of coffee ($10 per one-pound bag) from our sister parish, San Marcos in Honduras, after the Masses at Our Lady's on June 5-6, outside in front. This is our last sale before the SUMMER. It's a good idea to order ahead!
Click HERE for the order form. Or use the QR code to the right.
Or  email barbara.allaire@gmail.com with: 

• your name
• email address
• cell number
• # of bags of whole bean or ground coffee
• the Mass after which you will pick it up

Our Honduras Committee recently has been in touch with members of the committee in San Marcos that oversees the scholarship program for poor children of the parish. They tell us that since the children have not been in school for the past year because of the pandemic, they have not distributed last year's scholarship funds, so they have enough for this academic year (their school year began in February). Slowly the children are going back to school, most for one day a week. The San Marcos committee has already met with the first of several small groups of students and their families (13) to give them scholarship funds, and each month will start another group on the scholarships until they have reached 50 students. They cannot have large group meetings because of the pandemic restrictions.
 
San Marcos committee members also met with the pastor, Father Walter, to determine other needs in the parish that our fundraising could address. The parish covers a very large area, with the church building located in the town of San Marcos and about 52 remote villages spread out in the mountains around the town. This requires a very different organization than in our North American urban setting. Most villagers cannot attend the church, but lay leaders from the villages, who function as catechists and evangelizers, come down to the town each month to receive training and materials to take back to their villages and communicate the faith. They are also in touch with the needs of their people and make the parish aware of them. Currently the space for training and forming those lay leaders is unfurnished, needing chairs and window blinds to be able to show training videos. Father Walter has asked that some of our fundraising money this year go to that purpose. 
 
Any funds we raise that are beyond the furnishing of the training space will go toward helping town and village parishioners who have hardships and financial needs and ask the parish for help. And of course funds we raise beyond that will go toward next year's scholarship fund.
 

We hope you will consider giving a donation for the needs of our San Marcos brothers and sisters. You can send a check in any amount to Our Lady's, with "Honduras Sister Parish" in the memo line, or drop it in the collection basket. We thank you for reaching out with love, generosity, and prayers to our sister parish!