The three youth groups that took on Pay it Forward for Lent projects have turned $300 from The Catholic Spirit into $1,280 for charity.

Liz Townley’s fifth-grade religious education class at All Saints parish in Lakeville raised $520 through a hot dog supper and bake sale. A check will be sent from the parish to the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ disaster relief fund to help children affected by the 2010 oil spill, Townley said.

“I’m really proud of my kids,” she said. Some of them helped bake items at home and many other fifth-graders in the religious education program worked during the dinner and sale April 6.

Hoangsa Pham reported that the Knights of the Eucharist Level I high school group at St. Anne-St. Joseph Hien parish in Minneapolis has raised $360 for Humanitarian Services for Children of Vietnam.

Hung Dinh, a member of the group, said the youth have taken $100 of the profits from its sales of inspirational wrist bands to buy more bands to raise even more money for the charity.

Teresa Tran and Kathy Trinh, members of the Knights of the Eucharist Level II college-age group at St. Anne-St. Joseph Hien, said the members have raised $466 from pro-life

T-shirt sales to help the Robbinsdale Women’s Clinic, which encourages pregnant women to choose life.

“The plan is to keep on selling them to see if we can make more,” said Trinh, 18. “We talked about doing [a fundraiser] before, but have never been able to initiate anything. After finding out about the Catholic Spirit [project], we thought this was a great opportunity to get involved and get the [pro-life] issue out.”