Summer Service Updates

Thank you very much for your prayers and monetary support of our high school teens participating in St. Mary's summer service program this year. At the time of this writing, two groups have completed their service weeks - the first with Young Neighbors in Action, and the second with Habitat for Humanity. 

For Young Neighbors in Action, our team volunteered at St. Joseph's Social Services Center in Elizabeth, NJ. Elizabeth is the fourth largest city in New Jersey with a median household income of $43, 831. 19% of its residents live below the poverty line. St. Joseph's Center in Elizabeth was founded by an inspirational and Christ-like nun, Sister Jacinta, who is now 83 years old. The Center operates a soup kitchen, food pantry, preschool, day camp, and counseling offices with licensed therapists. It also has a clothing, shoes, and household goods distribution unit.  Each morning at the Center began with long lines of people queuing up for food and other essentials. Donations would arrive from supermarkets and the food bank. Our students unloaded and packaged 5,140 pounds of food on the first day. A supermarket dropped off 450 pounds of carrots and about 300 pounds of green squash that were at the end of their shelf life. The people who came were eager to accept what was offered and took it gratefully.  Many had children or older family members to feed. Although we were aware of poverty and homelessness in  America, it was disturbing to view it up-close and begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. Our students talked with the people who came to the Center. Some of the people who work there now were former clients themselves. They were people eager to be given an opportunity - a fighting chance to work hard and support themselves and their families. We realized that the playing fields are not level, that many people are born into extreme poverty and have the odds stacked against them even before they are born.

At St. Joseph's Center, we also cleaned and painted a mid-sized room for use as office space and sorted and boxed more than a thousand items of clothing for the Christmas “giving tree” program later in the year.



At Habitat for Humanity in Midcoast, Maine, St. Mary's group of teens worked hard, framing, building sections of interior walls, installing the base and first part of plywood paneling, placing blue board, securing studs, and much more!