Our Peer Ministry Catholic Relief Services committee co-hosted a Lenten Rice Bowl Event with the local Cara Noble Chapter (many SNJM Sisters and Associates are members of this chapter). Our CRS Representative joined us as the M.C. and our students helped create the Stories of Hope Program, did the set-up, serving, and operated the tech. We were blessed to Zoom with the Mexico and Guatemala country representative and our local bishop, Bishop Brian Nunes was present for the event. Our ceramics students donated bowls they made in class and they were sold during the event. We helped raise over $1,200 for CRS.
On March 24, the feast of St. Oscar Romero, we joined the Faith not Fear Public Witness for Migrants promoted by Ignatian Solidarity Network and held a school-wide prayer service along Alumnae Drive, reflecting the SNJM Corporate Stand with migrants and refugees. We honored the legacy of St. Oscar Romero and prayed as a community of faith, mourning the lives lost in immigration detention and standing in solidarity with families facing deportation and separation.
We had our school wide Service Day. Juniors went to Dockweiler Beach for a beach cleanup. Sophomores and Seniors went to the L.A. Regional Food Bank where they helped with the food distribution program. Freshmen stayed on campus and worked on 4 different projects. They made over 200 Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day cards for the incarcerated youth, men, and women who are served by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s prison ministry. The students then created craft kits for pediatric patients at the Los Angeles General Medical Center hospital. Students heard from SOFESA Founder and Director Jess Echeverry and their mission to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness and then they filled hygiene kits for the unhoused served by Angel Interfaith Network at St. Camillus Spiritual Care Center. They ended their day making crafts that they will sell to help fund a H20 for Life water delivery project in the Navajo Nation in Arizona as part of a service learning project in their study of the Corporate Stand on Water as a Human Right and Public Good.
