Our Lady of Fatima Social Ministry Committee

May 7, 2008 in Gathering Space 6:00 PM

Those in attendance were: Father Tom Jennings, Nichole Paladie from Catholic Charities, Connie Wieneke,

Tillie Clark, Mary Lou Mulligan, Sue Buffington, Harveen Gluf, Virginia Gerken, Vickie Nelson, Bernardine Merrill and Eileen Reisch.

Mary Lou Mulligan opened the meeting with prayer.

Nichole Paladie gave a report on her activities. She is building learning centers about Catholic Social Teaching for use throughout the diocese. She is working on a power point presentation on FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP over the summer. Catholic Charities is working on a parish nurse grant. She told us about the seven areas of interest for a Social Concerns Coordinating Team. She gave us a handout with that information. Nichole was especially happy with her “Day on the Hill” which was sponsored by the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition. She met all of the representatives from our area and was very well received. The JRLC has a goal of ridding our state of poverty by 2020 and she was very enthused about this and hopes to have a bigger group of folks for this trip next March. She is organizing a Box City promotion in October to draw attention to the plight of the poor and homeless in our country.

Sue Buffington reported on the Relay for Life which will take place on June 13 at 530 PM. We have bells and luminaries for sale at $5 each. Neva Clausen is taking charge of the bake sale grid. Joan Langford will design some small gift baskets to be raffled that night. We will have a tent set up in the park and we will sell rice krispie bars. They need some help on the morning of the event to set up luminaries. They would like more people to join the team. The cost is only $10 and that includes a T-shirt.

Father Tom reported that donations are down for the “Good Neighbor Fund”. They will continue to put announcements regarding the need for donations in the bulletin.

Father had many items regarding Creation Care or Environmental Justice. He mentioned that our Holy Father has spoken eloquently on this subject several times. He recognized Doug Bos who won an award for his work locally. He suggested that Mary Lou send him a congratulatory card this week from our group. Father handed out copies of several articles about environmental information. He had a book about rain gardens that might be a good idea for one of the garden areas around the church properties. He passed out some ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER magazines that we can read and return to the tables in the Gathering Space.

Harveen Gluf reported on the Elizabeth Ministry. She has a list of about a dozen families who have new babies and she gave names to few ladies who were present and will contact other volunteers on her list to get caught up once more. She is having some cards (including prayer cards) printed for each family. We also talked about her ministry of sending gifts to troops in Iraq. She is very busy and Mary Lou will contact Pat Scheidt and Cheryl Cox to see if they would be interested to taking on that chore while their children are over there.

Father reported on the Ministry of Care. He said it was operating very smoothly. Dick Smook is heading it up and is assisted by Tillie Clark and Eileen Reisch. They deliver Communion to those parishioners in nursing homes or homebound for any other reason. Father also described a newspaper article about a lady from the Yankton, SD area who started a movement called Seeds for Peace in Iraq. Mary Lou will contact her to see if that might be something that we can be involved in at some point in the future.

Father also mentioned that Deacon George Anderberg has resigned his position in our diocese to become a spokesperson for Food for the Poor and will be speaking in our parish the weekend of June 14 &15.

Mary Lou reported on several items that she had printed from the Catholic Relief Services website. These had to do with the cyclone in Myanmar, fair trade coffee and chocolate and voices of peace in the Holy Land. She also reported on the World Ark magazine which has wonderful articles from all over the world where the HEIFER PROJECT is trying to alleviate poverty. This magazine will be on the table in the Gathering Space for anyone to read and return. This is one of the groups who give us catalogs for alternative Christmas shopping.

Mary Lou mentioned that Martha Fick, the chaplain at the Mary Jane Brown Home, had an idea that it would be good for the newspaper to print a weekly list of family friendly events in the surrounding area. These could be church, park or school related or any thing that might be fun for a family outing. A suggestion was made that this was something better started at the Ministerial Association. But all agreed that it would be a very handy thing to see on a weekly basis and it might increase attendance at these events also.

We also discussed the opportunity this year because it is an election year to contact our elected officials on political positions that are important to us as citizens. The Minnesota Catholic Conference has a great web site that gives information on many subjects that should concern us. Mary Lou handed out copies of the suggestions on how to approach officials and a list from the newspaper of names and addresses of those people.

We talked about the farm bill that may be finished in the next week or so. Habitat for Humanity had a groundbreaking ceremony for another house on May 3 in Pipestone. We had a Board for the Lord promotion that netted $182. Mary Lou delivered our board and one from the Mary Jane Brown Home to the ceremony.

We set our next meeting date for July 23 in the Gathering Space at 6 PM.

We closed with the Lord's Prayer.

Respectively submitted, Mary Lou Mulligan, Coordinator