Sign Up for Monthly Donation Runs with the Young Adult Ministry

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” - Mother Teresa

The members of the young adult ministry would like to thank everyone for their generous donations to our clothing drive. We received an overwhelming amount of donations.

On Sunday, March 6, volunteers from the young adult ministry were able to bring clothing from your generous donations, food, and rosaries to our neighbors in Newark.  We served about 50 people and only made a small dent in the clothing donations.

Due to the positive experience and the remaining supply of clothes, we would like to continue to perform this service for our neighbors in need.  The members of our ministry wanted to open the opportunity up to the rest of the parish.  If you would be interested in participating by either providing food items or joining for distribution please reach out to youngadults@stachurchbloomfield.org for more information.  We are hoping to make a trip about once a month and will have a sign-up sheet for anyone interested in helping.

Finally, I would like to share a brief story.  One time a group I was part of was bringing food and clothing to a halfway house – a house designed to help people transition from prison back to their lives.  Upon dropping off the items we started to talk with the man who was working at the house.  He was telling us how most of his life he dealt with addiction and was on and off of the streets.  He said he tried every program to help fight addiction: AA, different therapies, etc. but nothing seemed to be working.  And then with tears in his eyes, he pulled out his cross necklace, and said: “it turns out all I needed to turn my life around was to be loved”.  He told us after he was shown love, he quit drugs and had completely turned his life around. He was seven years sober and was now spending his time in this halfway house trying to help others do the same.

As Catholics, we are called to love our neighbors, especially those most in need.  We are hoping these service trips will provide opportunities to do just that, as you never know who needs a little bit of love to turn their life around.

Thank you, and God Bless you!