This week Holy Family was blessed to have 70 young adults volunteer for Mission Makeover. Middle school and high school students poured their hearts into helping various members and organizations of nearby communities, as well as our own here in Grand Blanc. They prepared and served food at the Holy Angels Soup Kitchen and the South Flint Soup Kitchen, painted and moved furniture at the Autism Support & Resource Center in Burton, helped clean the church at St. Mary’s of Flint, and sorted clothing at the Community Closet. They also worked outside in the heat spreading mulch at St. John Vianney, completed grounds work at St. Francis Prayer Center, did a variety of yard work for two of our elderly parishioners, and built a retaining wall outside our school for continued beautification. Volunteers also worked at a children’s camp at Holy Redeemer all week and others spent quality time with seniors at a few senior living communities, namely Woodhaven and American House. The needy, the young, and the elderly weren’t the only ones who benefited this week; the volunteers learned a lot from this experience and want to continue to serve others.
We would like to thank various people for helping to make this week possible! We used funds raised through the Lenten dinners, Knights of Columbus for their monetary donation, and Shirley Sanborn, who donated money in memory of her late husband.
We also appreciate the parents who made lunches, chaperoned our site visits, and provided overall support for the Mission Makeover. A huge thank you also goes out to Dana George for helping the kids make a banner to commemorate the week, as well as our photographers, Ron Mraz and Cassie Belanger, who went to each site to photograph our hard-working volunteers.
We would like to thank Vidcam for turning the photographs into an awesome DVD to share at our culminating dinner at the end of the week that Italia Gardens provided, and Darren Hamilton for printing our T-shirts.
We would also like to thank Msgr Vincke and Fr. Gary who visited all the worksites (and even helped at them), provided a time for Eucharistic adoration and reconciliation and always came by to encourage us! Also thanks to Jonathan Belanger and his group for providing music during adoration and our own Alberto who came and lead a discussion on adoration and reconciliation.
Lastly, we would like to thank the maintenance staff at Holy Family, as well as the Parish for letting us use the building all week. The selfless work that all of these students and adults have put into helping others is a reminder that there is still a lot of good in this world! (See group picture on page 11 of bulletin.)