2009 STAOP ELEMENTARY FAITH FORMATION PROJECT
San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church and its Pastor, Fr. Hector Cruz, s.m. serve Cameron Park, a neighborhood just outside of Brownsville, Texas. In 2005 the US Census designated Cameron Park as the, “poorest community in the USA“. Catholics who subsist in these colnias or neighborhoods along the Texas border often lack running water, street lights and have limited electricity. However, the lay people and religious find time to minister to the physical and spiritual needs of those who are even less fortunate and live a few yards away in Matamoros, Mexico in trash dumps like we see on TV in Latin America and India.
San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Middle School, lay medical ministries, and lay/religious outreach and formation ministries that serve Cameron Park, other colinias and Matamoros are overwhelmed and desperately need help from the Texas catholic community! Specifically, families in the colnias often lack what we consider to be basic necessities.
One of the Lenten Elementary Faith Formation (FF) projects this year for our K-6th Grade students will focus on outreach to this Catholic border community. MOVING BEYOND OURSELVES allows our children to help those who are in real need in a very specific way with a Marist theme that helps us concentrate on others instead of ourselves. The project theme, “We are with you in Mind, Body and Spirit” allies our children with their less fortunate counterparts by having the FF classes donate items that are for the Mind, Body and Spirit. At the FF classes on March 22,23,24 there will be an audio/visual presentation to all classes introducing them to the issues challenging the families in the Catholic border communities. The students will be given a take-home sheet for the parents/children with a request for particular items to be donated and brought to FF on March 29,30,31. The items will be used to create Family Paks of mind, body and spirit items for a family of four. The Family Paks will be transported to San Felipe de Jesus church and distributed to the families. All administration and oversight will be handled by the STAOP Lay Marist ministry of the Society of Mary.
Please help us to “move beyond ourselves” and help our fellow Catholics in-need as our children ally with them in “mind, body and spirit”.