Sharing Board

Saint Columbanus Food Pantry

In December 2004, the Saint Gelasius Food Pantry in the Woodlawn area of Chicago merged with the food pantry at Saint Columbanus. What started as a ministry to 50 households per week has expanded to a comprehensive program providing food, clothes and social service for over 600 at-risk families in the Park Manor neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

The Sharing Board holds food drives two times a year to directly support the food pantry. These are held around Thanksgiving and Easter. We always need volunteers to help with these drives.

WE also help pack and distribute food on the 4th Wednesday of every month at the pantry. If you are interested in learning more, go to the food pantry website: www.stcolumbanuschicago.org/foodpantry.html or contact Carol Rolfs rolfers631@hotmail.com.

“MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO THOSE IN NEED”

Many, many thanks to all the parishioners who generously donated coats and food to help stock the St. Columbanus Food Pantry. Fr. Matt and his team were so thankful to all at St. Anne for their generosity. Thanks also to those who donated gift certificates and cash, which totaled over $1000.

Thanks also to Project Hope for their large donation of coats and food. Special thanks to all the volunteers, without your help it would not have been a success:

• Our Journey 6th& 7th grade volunteers who pack on Saturday night and the Journey 8th grade volunteers, who rode down to St. Columbanus and unpacked, all coordinated by Mary Jane Kurowski.
• Also thanks to Karen Walsh, who can be counted on every food drive, as well as Anne and Dan Guarnieri.
• Thanks again to our trusted truck drivers Bob Sobelewski and Jim Baumgart for traveling down with the donations.

The Sharing Board would also like to thank Una Colohan and her family for stepping forward to chair this event. Una did a fabulous job! For more information on the food drives or to volunteer to help, please contact Una Colohan at Una.B.Colohan@diageo.com.

Southside Center of Hope

Over the last three decades St. Martin de Porres House of Hope has always evolved to meet the needs of women and children who are struggling and as we continued adapting as we always have we made the decision to change our name to Southside Center of Hope. We believe this new name will better serve our agency and better represent the recovery, mental health, and case support services that we currently provide. Our goal under the new name is to be able to vastly expand our services while continuing to fulfill our mission of providing a safe and healing community for women and their children.