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Paying it forward for Lent |
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By The Catholic Spirit
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Tuesday, 17 February 2009 |
Projects will target hunger, education
Participants in The Catholic Spirit’s second annual Pay It Forward for Lent initiative have their sights set on helping to educate women and children in Africa and reaching out to the hungry and underprivileged here in Minnesota.
From left, Katie Cassidy, Sarah Shirron and Katherine Hird show samples of birthday bag items they will be assembling as part of their Pay It Forward project. The three girls are sixth-graders at Nativity of Mary School in Bloomington and belong to a Girl Scout troop at the school. - Photo by Dave Hrbacek / The Catholic Spirit
Four Lenten projects were chosen this year to receive a cash donation with instructions to “grow” it and help as many people as possible between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
The participants are seventh-grader Sarah Barney of Durango, Colo.;
Luke Brekke, a seventh-grader at Shakopee Area Catholic School; Piyali
Nath Dalal, a member of St. Olaf in Minneapolis; and a Girl Scout
troop from Nativity of Mary School in Bloomington.
Originally, The Catholic Spirit sought to fund up to three projects
with a donation of $100 for each. But two anonymous donors stepped
forward to donate an additional $400 — for a total of $700. A panel of
Catholic Spirit staff members chose the winning projects from 13
submissions. Each project will now receive $175 to get started.
Educating those in need
Barney read about the Lenten challenge in The Catholic Spirit thanks
to a gift subscription the family receives from her grandmother, Mary
Klein, a member of St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi.
Inspired by the success of a similar Pay It Forward project last year,
Barney and her family will buy tubes of M&M candies and give them
to people to fill with $15 in quarters. The proceeds will help educate
women and children of Ethiopia in East Africa.
Barney plans to get help from her parish and school, St. Columba in
Durango, and already has a letter ready to hand out with the tube of
candy that explains the project and the recipient charity: “Educate
Ethiopia.”
In her e-mail submission, Barney explained that her family started the
nonprofit organization to help keep open 21 Catholic schools in
northern Ethiopia and provide funding for Ethiopian women to attend a
teacher training college. (Read more about the organization at
www.educateethiopia.com.)
Brekke, 13, who attends St. Mark in Shakopee, and 14 friends put
together a plan for a fundraising effort that will support Free the
Children’s efforts to build a school in the West Africa country of
Sierra Leone.
Founded in 1995 by international children’s rights activist Craig
Kielburger, Free the Children has built more than 500 schools around
the world. (Read more about the organization at
www.freethechildren.com.)
Students and teachers at SACS will help with the fundraising, which
will kick off at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 8, with a performance by two
Christian comedians at the school. Fundraising will include a soup
supper and collecting coins.
Brekke said he was encouraged by his teacher, Joan Fering, who led a
Pay It Forward project last year to benefit the Feed My Starving
Children organization.
Winners at a glance
• Luke Brekke, a student at Shakopee Area Catholic School, plans to raise money to help build a school in Sierra Leone through events including a soup supper and collecting coins.
• Sarah Barney of Durango, Colo.,
will ask family members to fill M&M tubes with $15 worth of
quarters to be used to help educate Ethiopian women and children.
• Girls Scouts from Nativity of Mary School in Bloomington plan to assemble birthday bags to give to families in need.
• Piyali Nath Dalal of St. Olaf in Minneapolis will send letters to friends and family seeking donations for Second Harvest Heartland and its Food Rescue Program.
‘Birthday Bucks’
Katie Cassidy, Sarah Shirron and Katherine Hird sent a letter proposing
a “Birthday Bucks” project. They will use their money to purchase items
to put into birthday bags for families in need. The girls are part of a
Girl Scout Troop led by moms Therese Cassidy and Mary Kay Hird.
The girls plan to ask a variety of stores to help with the birthday
fixings, which will include colored bags, candles, balloons, birthday
cards, a cake mix and frosting. They will decorate the bags, make or
buy the cards and deliver them to a local food shelf in Bloomington.
“We are hoping that the mom or dad will ‘pay it forward’ by helping
other people when they are able,” they said in their submission to The
Catholic Spirit.
Dalal proposed sending out letters seeking donations from friends and
family to raise money for Second Harvest Heartland and its Food Rescue
Program.
Dalal said she shared her idea with some friends and a few of them have expressed an interest in helping her.
“This is truly an exciting opportunity to explore fundraising through
mail and Internet vehicles to promote a critical cause. Access to
fresh foods is a key to health, and all people, especially families in
need, deserve wholesome food for healthy living,” she said.
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