Beard + Beads + Bangles = Bucks: While COVID sidelined fundraisers that supported various parish outreach efforts, the need to fund outreach did not stop. At St. Thomas More, Lynchburg, the parish’s Haiti committee was not deterred. First, they raised $6,000 through the sale of “You Are Loved” yard signs. Then they enlisted the support of their pastor, Msgr. Michael McCarron. If parishioners donated $5,000, he would decorate his beard with beads and bangles. A parishioner matched that $5,000. The donations, which eventually totaled $18,000, were sent to Our Lady of the Nativity Catholic Church in Savanette, Haiti, where the money was used to pay teacher salaries, provide school lunches and to buy a generator to support a water treatment plant the parish helped build in 2014 in response to a cholera outbreak.
Honored: “How Can I Keep From Singing?” may have been the question most frequently asked by worshipers during the pandemic. Fortunately, several choirs in the diocese, including the one at Church of the Redeemer, Mechanicsville, produced digital videos for their parishioners throughout the year. They were honored to have their recording of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” chosen as the first video to be featured in the National Association of Pastoral Musicians’ Virtual Choir Showcase on May 5. Watch/listen to it here https://youtu.be/mO33QLava2s.
Written: Tom Fame, a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Salem, has published, “The Lambi’s Call: Breaking the Chains” which focuses on his work in Central Haiti as well as with the Haitian community in the Roanoke Valley. Available for $20 at 221 Homeplace Drive, Salem 24153 or on Amazon.