Notes from the Our Lady of Fatima Social Ministry Committee meeting

which took place on September 18, 2008 at 6:30 PM in the Gathering Space.

Those in attendance were: Father Tom Jennings, Nichole Paladie, Bernadine Merrill, Virginia Gerken and Mary Lou Mulligan

Mary Lou opened the meeting with the Prayer for America.

Nichole Paladie from the Catholic Charities office in Worthington brought several ideas for our consideration. She discussed the Catholic Relief Services program called Foods Resource Bank. This is a program designed to give farmers and others the opportunity to help poor farmers overseas.

There is a Social Ministry Training session in Paynesville on the weekend of October 24-26. Nichole will rent a van and hopes to fill it with participants.

Southwestern Minnesota has a big problem with homelessness, Nichole asked us to pray for answers.

The young man from Liberia named Doe Appleton, who has been doing landscaping with Father Tom, is trying to build an orphanage in Liberia for 75 children who lived in the refugee camp in which he had been confined in Ghana. This would be a diocesan project and we could include some fundraising for this around Christmas time.

October is Respect Life Month. Father will put inserts in the first weekly bulletin that month. There is a beautiful suggestion from the bishops’ conference for saying the Stations of the Cross for Life. The pamphlet with the text is in the chapel.

Mary Lou reported on a retreat attended by people from all over the western part of the diocese on the topic of the document from the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops called FORMING CONSCIENCES FOR FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP. A summary of the document will be an insert in the bulletin before the election. One of the suggestions from the bishops is to have a parish novena. Father has it scheduled for October 26 - November 4. The theme will be justice, life and peace. Catholic Social Tradition teaches that each of us should study all of the issues and cast an informed vote on November 4.

Cropwalk is September 28 at 2 PM in the City Park. Father and several parishioners will walk. Donations will be collected at Mass the weekend of the 21^st. One fourth of the money collected will go to the Rock County Emergency Food Shelf. The Food Shelf has had a big rise in the number of people served since spring.

St. Catherine's is doing Meals on Wheels all during the month of October. Virginia Gerken is in charge of staffing volunteers to deliver meals.

Tuesday, October 28^th is the day the Harvest Truck will stop in Luverne. There will be more information in the Star Herald later.

Habitat for Humanity is building a house in Pipestone this year and it should be completed early in November. Next year the house will be in Worthington. There is a fundraiser breakfast at the Jasper Community Center on September 28. There will be fundraiser dinners in Worthington and Pipestone on October 25. Mary Lou is a member of the Board for Habitat if anyone has questions call her at 449-2653.

October 19 is Bread for the World Hunger Sunday and there will be a second collection that day. There will be a bulletin insert the week before that.

Fair Trade Coffee and Tea has been purchased and will be for sale in the parish store during regular hours.

Fair Trade is a name given to products, usually from poor countries, which are sold in this country without the “middle man” so that the producers receive a more fair return on their investment.

We discussed several ways of using alternative shopping for the upcoming holiday season. One option would be financial support for the orphanage proposed by Doe Appleton. We have several catalogs on the table near the front door of Gathering Space. Items purchased from Fair Trade catalogs could be substituted for Christmas gifts. The Heifer Project allows contributions for poor families to be given in the name of someone on your gift list; there is also a catalog like that from Church world service. The last option discussed was having the 10,000 Villages Store, which sells Fair Trade items, set up shop in our Gathering Space on a Sunday prior to Christmas. They have some clothing and gift items and some food such as coffee, tea, chocolate and the like.

The Elizabeth Ministry would like anyone who wants to volunteer to cook a meal for a family with a new baby to email their availability to Harveen Gluf at harveengluf@hotmail.com

She would like to have emails for all the volunteers to match them with families needing a meal.

Mary Lou gave a report on Atlas for Life, which has an office in Luverne now. They are a Christian service that was established to assist those in our community who are hurting or are in need. The new offices are above the old city hall. They usually meet on Monday night in their office at 7 PM and all who are interested in helping people are invited to attend.

The next meeting will be November 5 at 6:30PM.

Nichole led a prayer and the Lord's Prayer to end our meeting.

Respectfully submitted, Mary Lou Mulligan, Coordinator