News

Appleton Lenten collection helps worldwide

By Joanne Flemming
Compass Correspondent

When members of St. Bernadette Parish, Appleton, made donations to the missions during Lent, they knew their money would go to a good cause.

This year, the causes are remodeling the school in the Green Bay Diocese's mission in Elias Piña parish and helping students in Africa, Terri Bourassa, co-chair of the parish Mission Committee said. All money raised goes to the missions, she added. Parishioners learn how their donations were used through e-mails, letters and photos from recipients.

For the last several years, the Mission Committee has collected $3,000 to $9,000 each Lent for projects which include a Sisters of Charity home for malnourished children in the Elias Piña region; the Inn of the Good Samaritan pre/post-hospital care facility in Santa Domingo, and one in Africa that changes each year.

Dr. Francis and Jo Van Lieshout recalled how in the 1980s they visited their daughter, who was serving in the missions in Zimbabwe. The library in the school had a large room with only 50 to 100 books. Back at St. Bernadette, they gave talks and ran requests in the bulletin for books, which were shipped in large canvas bags. The Mission Committee paid the postage from caramel apple sales at Appleton's Octoberfest and donations. The committee also mailed 6-8 boxes of other items to the mission.

The Mission Committee reorganized in 1990, under the leadership of parishioner Carol Mennen, said Bourassa. It decided to make its support more personal for the parish by supporting two causes with local links.

It chose Dominican Republic projects because Fr. Tom Reynebeau, a former associate pastor, had served in Elias Piña, and projects in Africa because Fr. Carl Meulemans, a Maryknoll priest from Wrightstown and also an associate pastor, had been a missionary there.

Committee members explain the annual collection at weekend Masses in early Lent. Envelopes distributed through parish bulletins are returned by Easter, Bourassa said.

Fr. Don Zuleger, newly appointed pastor, said the collection allows parishioners to connect with the global church. "It's just astounding the sensitivity they have already engendered particularly in the Lenten season when we are asked to be sensitive to the needs of the poor and to show mercy to those the good Lord shows mercy to," he said.

Fr. Bill Hoffman, pastor of St. Therese, Appleton, who formerly served in Elias Piña, said St. Bernadette parishioners have "been doing some great things."

Elias Piña projects the Mission Committee has helped with include: buying religious education materials; building a chapel in outlying areas; funding the parish bakery; buying tin to refurbish roofs on homes of elderly parishioners; building and furnishing the school. This year's funds will go to the school's remodeling.

Items collected for Dominican Republic projects include: Over-the-counter medicines for the Missionaries of Charity and the Inn of the Good Samaritan; baby formula for the Missionaries, and towels, nightgowns, sheets, pull toys and peanut butter for the Inn.

Stacey Wilson, a St. Bernadette member and a senior at Xavier High School, along with other Xavier students will carry these and other items donated by parishioners to the Dominican Republic in bags.

Wilson said she decided to go on the trip because of stories friends told her after their 2005 trip.

The African projects are associated with Maryknoll religious or lay affiliates, Bourassa said. Nancy Bourassa, a former committee member who volunteered in the African missions, helped find some projects. Other committee members also have recommended projects. One year, they helped a doctor whom Dr. Van Lieshout knew from his days at Marquette University Medical School. The doctor was working with Pygmies in the Congo.

African projects have included: Building a pipeline to provide water to a school; buying orthopedic beds for a hospital; helping women needing medical attention; providing food and clothing to hospitalized children.

This year's African project is Reach Out - Mbuya Parish HIV/AIDS Initiative in Kampala, Uganda, which operates a school for children who have or whose parents have AIDS.

Classes run only through the seventh grade, Terri Bourassa said. The day the St. Bernadette committee contacted the project to say it was sending support, school officials were trying to figure out how to get funds for more schooling.

Dr. Margrethe Juncker, who runs the Initiative, "saw our offer as an answer to her prayer," Bourassa said. "It was almost as if God was intervening."

Besides its Lenten project, the Mission Club makes and serves dinner three or four times a year at Appleton's Emergency Shelters for the homeless, which Jo Van Lieshout calls serving "the home mission."

Other committee members are: Otto and Carolyn Cox, Tom and Peg Greunke, Ed and Kathy Kleckner, co-chair, and Sue Taylor.