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The
Alternative Christmas Faire is Back!
Organizations Helped
by The Outreach Committee
Our Outreach
donations throughout the year go to a number of worthy causes, but we
don’t think people know about them! We think that if you knew a little
about the organizations and people that we support, you’d want to
contribute to them yourselves. So, we’ve decided that each month we’ll
tell you about one of the groups or causes or people
whom we support, and encourage you to add to our
donation. If you feel that you want to help us support the donation
described, make a check payable to Prince of Peace, and put the name of
the organization or whatever in the memo line. Then when we send our
check, we’ll include the money that you have donated as well.
Angel’s Way Maternity Home
Outreach Project of the Month for June
Angel’s Way Maternity Home is a place of
refuge for unmarried, pregnant women over the age of 18. It is located
nearby, in Canoga Park, and can house up to six women at a time.
Typically the women to stay at Angel’s
Way have no other support from family or friends. While at Angel’s Way,
the women learn to care for themselves and their babies, and to deal
with life situations such as balancing a checkbook, budgeting, and
planning menus. They may also take classes leading to a GED
certificate, or to gaining needed job skills. Counseling is provided
during this critical time in their lives, and as a result of counseling,
the young woman may choose to keep her child, or to arrange for
adoption, if that makes the most sense to her. The women usually stay
up to one or two months after their baby is born, but some leave shortly
after giving birth.
The home is supported solely by
benefactors who answer God’s call to serve Him in this way. Because of
the caring and kindness of these benefactors, the people who work at
Angel’s Way are able to provide housing, guidance and direction to the
young women who come to them. Soon after coming to Angel’s Way, the
women are able to see hope for themselves and their previous babies.
If you would like to add your support
for Angel’s Way Maternity Home to ours, please make a check payable to
Prince of Peace, and put “Angel’s Way Maternity Home” in the memo
section. Drop your check into the collection plate, send it to the
office, or give it to the person at the Outreach/Scrip table after
Sunday’s service.
Our Little Roses is a ministry for
homeless girls in Honduras, Central America. It began in 1988 in a
small rented house with 26 girls. The ministry caught the interest of
officials in San Pedro Sula, a city in the northwestern part of the
country. They gave land to Our Little Roses on which now live 70 girls
and staff and in several buildings and many ministries including a
school and chapel. It began with a vision given to Doctor Diana Frade
of hope with life-changing dimensions for physically and emotionally
abused girls, as well as orphans.
There are no governmental social
services or funds for Honduran children who become victims of violence,
poverty, disease and oppression. The need was desperate in 1988, and it
is even more compelling today. Children are often forced into the
streets to fend for themselves when their families cannot or will not
care for them. Poverty produces abusive situations for many
pre-adolescent girls who are deprived of an education by being kept home
to take care of younger siblings, with no adult supervision or
oversight.
At Our Little Roses Homes, every girl
is given not only shelter but education and love. Uniforms and school
fees are provided, and a staff of teachers helps newly arrived girls
catch up with their peers. The sense of family at Our Little Roses
sustains all the girls, who are active in church. Many are members of
the choir, youth fellowship leaders and acolytes.
Our Little Roses Home is one of the
residences, this one for girls ages seven to graduation from high
school. When a girl comes to Our Little Roses, she is given love,
attention and a Christian education. The idea that she is able to do
anything with her life is stressed throughout. The girls of the Home
are sent out into the community, to one of seven different schools so
that they can receive an education that is tailor made to them and their
academic strengths.
This home, the first one, was named in
memory of Rosa Judith Cisneros (1936-1981), an Episcopalian who worked
for social justice in El Salvador, especially as a champion for women’s
and children’s rights. She was martyred on the steps of government
house in San Salvador.
Mark 10:14 Home is for infants and
little girls to age six. This home, named for the passage in the Gospel
of Mark where Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder
them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God,” offers a safe place and
loving environment for abandoned or abused little girls.
Ginger Buice Transition House is named
in honor of the daughter of the Rev. William Buice, who was tragically
killed in an accident by a drunk driver just after her graduation from
college. This transitional home is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house 1-1/2
blocks from the Our Little Roses compound. The goal of the transitional
home is to help the girls who are graduating from high school acclimate
themselves to the real world. There is a great deal of interdependence
among the girls, who live at the home. The transitional home helps to
teach the girls very important lessons about living on their own,
although this process is made easier by the fact that the girls were
never completely removed from the community attending outside schools
and being regular members of church and church events.
The new building being constructed
directly behind Ginger Buice will be a two-story apartment building
containing 12 efficiency apartments. And again here, just as in the
Ginger Buice House, the girls will have to pay a nominal rent and their
bills. With these sides to our program, we are able to prepare the
graduates of Our Little Roses to live in their community and to not only
be able to survive but to flourish, to be the pillars of their
communities, and the new leaders of Honduras.
Another adjuncts to Our Little Roses is
Holy Family Medical Clinic, located a few blocks from the walled campus
of Our Little Roses. Two doctors and one nurse offer medical services
six days a week at a very low price. On Saturdays the clinic is free to
those who cannot pay. The doctors also organize and lead medical
brigades that minister to the poorest of the poor, in the countryside of
Honduras. The Holy Family is not only a clinic, but a bilingual school,
day care and chapel.
Boulder City, NV
OUTREACH PROJECT FOR
APRIL, 2004
St. Jude’s Ranch for
Children is a non-profit, non-sectarian home for abused, abandoned and
neglected children of all races and faiths. It is dedicated to breaking
the vicious cycles of abuse and welfare dependency by providing safe
home-like environments that ensure unmatched healing services so that
each child may achieve his/her full potential.
In the beginning,
St. Jude’s Ranch for Children wasn’t a pace, so much as a dream in the
mind of a single well-meaning man. “What if we could build a place for
neglected children?” he wondered. “How much good could we do?” The
answer, in hindsight, is “A lot!” Through the years approximately 1,000
children have stayed in its homes in Nevada and Texas. Clearly St.
Jude’s Ranch is making a difference.
The vision came from
Father Jack Adam, an Episcopal priest who wanted to create a safe haven
for abandoned children in Southern Nevada. For a time, it seemed
fitting he decided to name the home “St. Jude’s”. St. Jude is the
Patron Saint of Impossible Causes. And Father Jack’s project seemed to
be one of them. Then in 1966 a group of local leaders stepped forward
to help him. A fund raiser was held on November 15, 1966, with the
participation of such stars as Jack Benny, Shecky Green, Bob Hope and
Frank Sinatra. More than $30,000 was raised. Alvin Wartman, an
attorney in Boulder City, persuaded city fathers to provide 40 acres for
a campus. The Sisters of Charity, an order of nuns based in Bristol,
England, arrived to care for the children. Construction began in the
Spring of 1967, and that September the first boy came to the ranch. The
ranch provides care for abused, abandoned, neglected and other “at risk”
children from infancy to age 21 through comprehensive residential and
short term treatment programs which include:
·
Safe
and loving homes
·
Well
trained staff
·
Academic assessment and tutoring
·
Counseling
·
Clinical therapy
·
Emergency shelter
·
Transitional living
·
Life
skills training
·
Medical care
·
Recreation
·
Child
development testing
·
Spiritual development
In 1994 St. Jude’s
Ranch for Children agreed to take over the operation of a second
location located in Bulverde, Texas, just north of San Antonio. The
program in Bulverde is similar to the one offered in Boulder City, and
most of the children there are teenagers.
In 1999 St. Jude’s
added a third campus. It is the Comel County Emergency Children’s
Shelter in New Braunfels, Texas. It is licensed to care for children
between the ages of 3 months and 9 years, but most of the children are
under 5.
St. Jude’s Ranch for
Children operates as a non-profit organization, and exists largely on
donations from the general public. Campbell Soup labels (and related
product labels) are collected and enable the Ranch to purchase minivans
to transport the children to and from school, appointments, and
extracurricular activities. Also greeting cards are donated to the
ranch, and the children use them to “recycle” by precision cutting the
card fronts and glueing them to pre-printed card stock. The children
receive fifteen cents per each acceptable card made, which is divided
between their savings and college fund, their cottage fund for special
group outings, and to provide the kids with extra pocket money. Cards
are available for sale in packages of 10 cards/envelopes.
March, 2004
St. Vincent Meals on Wheels
This organization began in 1977, and has since become the largest
privately funded meals program in the country. In 1977, Sister Alice
Marie Quinn, a Daughter of Charity and Registered Dietitian at St.
Vincent Medical Center, saw some seniors’ health decline after being
released from the hospital. After identifying a need for senior
nutrition services in the Westlake neighborhood surrounding the
hospital, Sister Alice Marie began preparing meals for neighborhood
seniors in the parish hall of Precious Blood Catholic Church.
By 1987 St. Vincent
Meals on Wheels had expanded to serve homebound seniors and adults with
serious illnesses throughout Los Angeles, from downtown to West
Hollywood. In 1989, to serve clients who prefer to receive a week’s
worth of meals at one time, St. Vincent began a frozen meal program. In
1993 a Breakfast Program was added for 200 seniors who had no other way
of getting food, and in 1999 St. Vincent Meals on Wheels was certified
by the Meals on Wheels Association of America for meeting national
standards of excellence.
In 2003, a new
state-of-the-art facility opened that has increased their capacity to
5,000 meals per day. In a related project, scheduled for completion
this year, a residence will be built, providing 114 apartments for
homebound individuals from the St. Vincent Meals on Wheels program who
live alone without support from family or other sources.
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Prince of Peace
