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By Alice Kenny
Did you smile at a stranger today? Buy flowers for a friend? Help a child with homework?
Tell us about your random act of kindness and you could win a free gift from Catholic Charities.
By Alice Kenny
Show your spirit for service by performing random acts of kindness and you could be eligible to win a prize!
During Random Acts of Kindness Week (February 11-17), tell us what act of kindness you performed during this week and you will be automatically entered for your chance to win a free gift from Catholic Charities.
Your random act of kindness can be big or small, for a stranger or a friend, or even done anonymously. Join Catholic Charities in providing help and creating hope for the community during Random Acts of Kindness Week and beyond.
Visit us on Facebook to enter the contest!
By Alice Kenny
You’re Invited:
What: Random Act of Kindness week 
Uh…What? Just like it sounds: Surprise someone with kindness – this week or every week.
When: February 11-17
Why: Why not!
How:
And that’s just for starters. Catholic Charities offers dozens of volunteer opportunities for your random – or ongoing – acts of kindness.
Simply type in a key word such as “children” or “marathon” and your zip code.
Ready to start volunteering right away?
Visit Getting Started to learn your next steps.
Catholic Charities New York kicked off New York State’s coordinated disaster case management (DCM) program by offering a two-day orientation and training on January 10-11 for disaster case managers, supervisors, and other key staff. This kickoff training event was held at Cardinal Spellman Center in lower Manhattan.
More than 50 Catholic Charities New York staff members along with staff from various social service organizations including Catholic Charities Brooklyn Queens, Project Hope and BronxWorks attended.
Training topics included disaster impacts, resources available to help New Yorkers hurt by Hurricane Sandy, the role of disaster case managers, and essential steps for providing disaster case management and how to coordinate with other agencies providing DCM services. Representatives from FEMA, New York State Office of Emergency Management, Project Hope, and Catholic Charities provided feature presentations.
Ongoing trainings will be offered on a regular basis to delve deeper into the material presented in this initial training and to introduce new topics and resources as appropriate.
Martin Luther King Day, celebrated this year on January 21, is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service – a “day on, not a day off.” It is a part of United We Serve, the President’s national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems.
Catholic Charities is pulling together a team of volunteers this Saturday, January 19, to help with the physical clean up of four Staten Island homes badly destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Tasks include removal of sheet rock & insulation, cleaning behind it and removal of flooring. Transportation will be provided.
With the goal of creating a tradition, President Barack Obama and others are participating in National Day of Service on January 19.
Are you a faith or neighborhood-based immigrant and non-immigrant group collaborating on projects to sustain healthy communities through high-impact service projects AND looking for funding support?
If you are, you may be eligible for up to a $3,000 UnityNYC grant.
Partner with one or many groups, come up with an idea, and apply.
But you need to move fast. The application deadline is January 31st, 2013.
To access the application, check out the Citizens Committee for NYC’s website: www.citizensnyc.org/programs/grants/unitygrants.html.
Thank you for your partnership and ongoing commitment to our city’s immigrant communities.
In unity, we will continue to make NYC the greatest city in the world!
Contact ccvolunteer@archny.org for more information.
On Saturday, January 5th, Obreros Unidos de Yonkers held their annual Three Kings Party to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. Timothy Cardinal Dolan joined over 300 members and their families for an Epiphany Vigil Mass at St. Peter’s Church and a celebration afterward.
The Feast of the Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, is widely celebrated in the Hispanic community with parties, gifts and a special pastry called rosca de reyes (kings’ ring). Catholic Charities staff and volunteers, including the Sisters of Charity, helped at Saturday’s party by serving dinner, distributing toys to children and giving gifts to the registered workers.
Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, Executive Director of Catholic Charities, Janet Hernandez, the community organizer who staffs the Obreros Unidos program and Father Lino Otero, the pastor of St. Peter’s parish, all participated in the celebration, along with Yonkers Mayor Michael Spano.
“This is a great opportunity to celebrate the contribution that immigrants are making,” said Monsignor Kevin Sullivan. “Their faith, industriousness and commitment to family are values that inspire us all. Catholic Charities is both proud and privileged to be part of this community and provide needed help that creates a future of hope for these workers and their families.”
Obreros Unidos (Workers United) is a group of approximately 300 day laborers in the Yonkers area that works with Catholic Charities on projects throughout the year. For example, after Sandy hit, Obreros Unidos members volunteered to remove crumbling sheet rock and pull out ruined furniture from Staten Island houses destroyed by the storm. Catholic Charities also provides multiple services for the group, including educating workers on employment rights and responsibilities in order to prevent exploitation and abuse.
By Jeanne McGettigan, Catholic Charities Director of Emergency Food Services
On New Year’s Eve, Catholic Charities Emergency Food Services Department enlisted our Mobile Food Pantry staff and volunteers to distribute 6,000 meals in Midland Beach, a Staten Island neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
Three staff and four volunteers rose early in the morning to pack bags at our delivery location in the Bronx, while another staff member waited for 26 cases of frozen chickens to be unloaded at the distribution site in Midland Beach, St. Margaret Mary Church. In addition, one staff member stopped by our Staten Island office at Anderson Avenue to pick up 100 children’s books to distribute to children who stopped by. By 11am, the Mobile was parked in the lot of the parish, at 560 Lincoln Avenue.
A steady stream of residents arrived. Some had heard from their pastor, others from fliers given out at the nearby Restoration Center. One woman said that she had just gotten a small electric oven, and she would cook her first meal in it with some of the items. Residents who were still not able to cook were glad for ready-to-eat items such as apple cider, tuna, cream cheese, bread, romaine lettuce, and oranges.
Jim Reagan, head of the parish St. Vincent de Paul Society, offered to drive staff around to some of the still-devastated areas to check in and offer help. It was sad to go block after block and find so many houses empty, their former residents staying elsewhere. However, when we did find occupants at home, they were very grateful for assistance.
One man invited us into his humble bungalow, stripped down to the studs.
“We’ve got nothing” he said. “We’ll take anything you can give us.”
Another family of six sent their two teenagers out to carry in armfuls of food.
One resident said, “I’m ok. Give it to someone who needs it.” A few minutes later, he was back. “I have a friend I can bring this to. I’ll take a bag.”
By mid afternoon, over half of the bags had been distributed and the numbers of recipients had slowed.
Staff then contacted Tony Hall, of STAR (Small Town America Recovers) with a restoration hub set up at Midland and Kiswick. Tony has been running a grass roots effort since the earliest days after the hurricane. He agreed to take the remaining food and distribute it from his tent.
By the time we arrived to do the drop-off, a line had already gathered. There was a family there: mother, father and child who had lost everything and were so grateful for the food that they received. They let me know that they had to abandon their home for the time and were living with their father in-law. A home of one suddenly became a house of four and food and money were scarce so they were happy to take some of the ‘burden’ from their father, if only for a few meals. When we checked in with Tony a few days later, he confirmed that all of the remaining food had been distributed on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to residents of Midland Beach.
