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CURRENT
ISSUE: September 19, 2005
VOL.
43, NO. 16Oakland,
CA
Local Catholics mobilize Katrina aid
Janet Glubetich
is a new Catholic. She is also a graduate of Just Faith, a formation program
in social justice. She put her faith and training together within hours
of the Katrina disaster and began mobilizing St. Joan of Arc Parish in
San Ramon to respond to the horror she saw unfolding in New Orleans.
She quickly learned that Kellye French of neighboring St. Isidore Parish
in Danville was also collecting food, clothing and personal care items
for the hurricane’s victims. The parish St. Vincent de Paul Society
had made contact with fellow Vincentians in Houston where thousands of
evacuees were living in the Astrodome.
Soon the two women, the Vincentians and scores of others had begun a relief
effort that spanned both parishes and neighboring communities, joining
local Catholics throughout the diocese who responded to the crisis with
an outpouring of aid.
Schools collected clothing and money and opened their doors to displaced
students, and Mercy Retirement and Care Center in Oakland donated beds
and sent staff members to provide first-hand help in Louisiana. Others
have come together in prayer for the victims.
As the joint effort by Glubetich and French got underway at St. Isidore
and St. Joan of Arc, the county St. Vincent de Paul Society parked a truck
at each parish to receive the items that began pouring in.
A local company donated use of a semi-truck, which was quickly filled
with donations, arranged in labeled boxes. It left Danville on Sept. 5
and arrived in Houston two days later. The goods were unloaded at a St.
Vincent de Paul site for distribution to evacuees.
Across the diocese in Richmond, Dorothy Stewart was also compelled to
help. She phoned the principal at Our Mother of Mercy School in Houston’s
Fifth Ward and learned that more than 20 new students would soon be arriving
at the school, displaced from their homes by Katrina. The kids needed
school clothes – uniforms, underwear and clean socks.
Stewart also contacted St Francis Xavier School in Baton Rouge and learned
that they, too, were accepting students from New Orleans.
Next, she approached the principal of Berkeley’s School of the Madeleine,
where her daughter is an eighth grader, about organizing a uniform drive.
Then she and two other eighth-grade moms – Kelly McVay and Mara
Smith— got to work. Using their own resources and generous offers
by employers and businesses, the women, with the help of other moms and
students, succeeded in filling and shipping 40 large boxes.
Among the items were 670 pairs of socks, 260 uniform shirts, 300 uniform
pants and 25 uniform skirts and jumpers. Stewart said the items will be
shared with other Baton Rouge and Houston Catholic schools that have also
received evacuees.
Meanwhile, at St. Bernard School in East Oakland, principal Kathy Gannon-Briggs
was making room for three new students who had driven with their family
from New Orleans to the home of an uncle. They entered school with new
backpacks, filled with supplies, donated by their new classmates.
At neighboring St. Elizabeth Elementary School, the students were busy
collecting funds as part of the National Catholic Education Association’s
effort to get at least $1 from every Catholic school child in the nation.
The fourth graders were determined to bring in as many pennies as they
could find.
Across the street at St. Elizabeth High, the school’s charity club
was also collecting funds while administrators look for a Gulf Coast school
that can use their help. Principals at Carondelet High in Concord and
Moreau Catholic in Hayward were doing the same.
Likewise, students in three local Lasallian schools (St. Mary’s
College in Moraga, St. Mary’s High in Berkeley and De La Salle in
Concord) have joined in “Bridges to the Bayou,” a Christian
Brothers’ campaign to aid at least three Lasallian schools in Louisiana
that were devastated by the storm and floods.
At St. Felicitas School
in San Leandro, the student council sponsored a fundraising effort that
has already yielded more than $2,200 for hurricane victims. Students at
St. Clement School in Hayward paid for the privilege of “free dress”
and donated the funds for disaster aid.
Local Catholics have also provided practical hands-on help to exhausted
relief workers. Three staff members of Oakland’s Mercy Retirement
and Care Center –Mercy Sister Patty Creedon, administrator; Jean
Moore, a nurse practitioner, and Mercy Sister Lenore Greene, a social
worker — have flown to Columbia, Louisiana, to give staff at Haven
Nursing Center a much-needed break in caring for patients evacuated from
New Orleans.
Six nursing homes in Columbia received up to 110 new patients and were
desperately looking for hospital beds, said Kristine Watson, Mercy’s
director of community relations. So Mercy pitched in and purchased 18
for quick delivery to Haven.
The Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose have offered 15 rooms for displaced
religious women who need assisted living care. They are also ready to
receive religious in formation programs disrupted by the hurricane.
Throughout the Oakland Diocese, Catholics have come together to pray for
the Katrina survivors and to take up collections for Catholic Charities
USA.
St. Charles Parish in Livermore hosted an interfaith prayer service. St.
Mary-St. Francis de Sales in Oakland organized a benefit concert of Vietnamese
music.
At St. Leo Parish in Oakland, the social ministry group collected notes
of sympathy and prayer to be sent to the St. Vincent de Paul Society in
Houston for distribution to survivors. Parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes
reached deep into their pockets and raised more than $5,000 in one Sunday.
Several pastors with parishioners who are Gulf Coast natives organized
a Sept. 15 meeting at Berkeley’s St. Joseph the Worker Church to
share information on how to help arriving evacuees. Catholic Charities
and the Red Cross were on hand to offer their expertise.
Children from St. Isidore Parish in Danville help load a St. Vincent de
Paul truck with donations for Katrina evacuees now living in Houston.
CHRIS DUFFEY PHOTO
This woman prays for victims of Hurricane Katrina during
an interfaith service, Sept. 8, at St. Charles Church in Livermore.
GREG TARCZYNSKI PHOTO
