Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2008 / Early collection helps with holiday basket giving
Early collection helps with holiday basket giving
by Kristin Lukowski of The Michigan Catholic
Published December 5, 2008
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Kristin Lukowski | The Michigan Catholic
Gerry Kostrzeba helps load Jesica McKinnie's car with Thanksgiving food, paper goods and soap as Taylor, 4, flashes a smile. |
Warren At St. Martin de Porres Parish, Warren, their Thanksgiving and Christmas collections start in May with toothpaste and laundry soap.
Parishioners spread out their buying of household items and food over much of the year, and come the holidays, families in need also receive necessary items that aren't usually included in distributions, such as toilet paper, paper towels and soap. Then, the last months of the year can be dedicated to collecting food for holiday meals and staples, such as peanut butter and cereal.
Renee Heileman, RN, the parish's nurse and Christian service coordinator, explained that the parish started thinking about revamping its food distribution program after people coming in to receive food kept asking if the parish had any household items to give, as well. At first, the parish bought household items with monetary donations, before volunteer Gerry Kostrzeba came up with the idea of collecting the items from parishioners beginning in May, after Easter almsgiving. They start with the smaller items "for storage purposes," Heileman explains and a typical collection might include shampoo, bars of soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels, deodorant and laundry soap. "The parishioners like it that way it's made it easier, one thing a month," Heileman said.
As Thanksgiving gets closer, the parish does a regular food collection on the weekends preceding for typical holiday food items. With the blessing of pastor Fr. Roman Pasieczny, Heileman keeps the collection boxes out all throughout the month, with an announcement as to what's being collected at what time.
"It's amazing," she said. "I'm overwhelmed every year how generous this parish is."
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Kristin Lukowski | The Michigan Catholic
Robert McClintock, 14, helps his mother, Mary, load food and paper goods into their car. |
The Monday before Thanksgiving, people came to the parish in a steady stream to pick up boxes of food and household items. Mary McClintock, who lives in the area and formerly attended the parish, hoped the extra food and items in her box would last her family a few weeks.
"Things are really bad," she said.
Jesica McKinnie, a mom with two young children, said the food means a lot to her, especially in a time when no one has much. Not only was she having Thanksgiving dinner for her own immediate family, but she was also hosting dinner for a family whose house burned down.
She said the gesture from the parish was "beyond words," she said. "You don't expect it, especially now times are so hard," she said.
In talking to her friends, she's found that everyone is experiencing hard times, with most of any money being made paying rent and bills. "There's nothing else for anything left over," she said.
Not only did every family take home a few boxes of items, but each got a turkey and a Meijer gift card for perishable items, the money for which came from people who donated money to the cause. The parish had collected so many turkeys some to be distributed with food and goods the week before Christmas Heileman, the parish secretary and the parish's deacon had all taken some home to temporary storage in their own freezers. The parish tried to customize the distribution, so a family with many children would get more peanut butter, for example.
Heileman said the people who receive assistance vary from single parents who have no support system, to the unemployed, to the working poor, to the elderly. And some of the volunteers who sort the food collected some 25 this year help out because when they were a kid, Goodfellows or St. Vincent de Paul helped out their family.
The parish does a Christmas program, too; another food distribution, a Giving Tree, and a food collection by the parish and religious education classes. Heileman said it is a fish and loaves situation, where they have always received items as people needed them so no one has to go without.
"People come in after the fact, and we try not to send anyone away without something," she said. "I'm thrilled that we can do more than food for them."
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