St. Al's Donations Already Piling Up

Just part of the food items already collected for the Pottstown Cluster at the St. Aloysius campus

POTTSTOWN  -- The folks over at St. Aloysius have been busy people.

As I wrote about here in Sunday, after a story ran in the print edition of The Mercury about the involvement of St. Aloysius School and the church's prep program for kids preparing for their first Holy Communion or Confirmation, donations for their food drive are already pouring in.

More of the St. Al's haul

An e-mail Sunday from Cathy Wieand, who is coordinating the efforts at the parochial school, indicated that already, 133 items have been collected.

 

"Our count as of Friday morning was 2 laundry detergents and 133 other items for the Cluster. That was after Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, not a bad start," she wrote.

"And as it happens at the end of the day we found two more laundry detergents at our door -- we will count them tomorrow afternoon and I will take a drop to the cluster on Tuesday." 

Added, Wieand, "we have put up a sign and have a box in the Gathering Center, with a sign on the door if anyone is dropping off."

In case you're not familiar with it, the "gathering center" is the spiffy new building between the church and the school on North Hanover Street just north of Beech Street.

The St. Aloysius Gathering Center is next to the church.

The Mercury's Fill the Media Lab food drive is really taking off.

On Friday, our Tale of Two Dogs blogger reported that one person made a massive donation at the Boneyard Joe's drop-off she set up.

In included 89 "human items," and 90 "pet food items" and five bottles of laundry detergent.

"The owner of Boneyard Joe's said Ms. Kline donated all these items herself and would not accept a free lunch from them for her generosity.

It's stories like that which serve as a reminder of how many quietly incredible people there are out there.

Which reminds me to remind you that there are lots of places where you can drop off food donations and lots of places that are benefiting.

Here is a map of the places which have volunteered to be our drop-off locations.

St. Al's Joins the Food Drive

Blogger's Note: This post first ran as an article in The Mercury on March 7.

POTTSTOWN  -- When Mike Kilgore gathered the students of his St. Aloysius “prep program” together recently, he had a few seemingly simple questions for them before they began their lessons for their first Holy Communion or Confirmation.

“How many of you had something to eat before you came here?” he asked them, and was rewarded with a show of hands.

“How many of you are full? How many of you had clean clothes?” he asked.

St. Aloysius Church in Pottstown

“I wanted to get them thinking about things they probably take for granted, and then I told them that there are people for whom the answer to those questions is ‘no,’” Kilgore recalled. “I told them there could be people on their street who need that kind of help.”

All of which, Kilgore said, was to get the class in the right frame of mind to participate in our Fill the Media Lab food drive, being conducted during Lent.

“I’ve always thought that rather than do without on Lent, it’s better to do something positive, so this is a great time to do something like this” Kilgore said.

“I talked the entire class and they’re really excited,” Kilgore said. “We’re going to use the church as the drop off.”

St. Aloysius School

It’s not just Kilgore’s students who will be gathering food.

All students at St. Aloysius School will participate as well, confirmed Cathy Wieand, acting marketing director for the school.

Starting with an announcement Wednesday morning, the school’s Student Council will begin a food drive that will benefit the Cluster Outreach Center, Wieand said.

“It’s going to be the whole school, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade,” she said.

It will be announced to the school’s families through the weekly mailing and to the school over the morning announcements.

Help us fill this space with food for the hungry

In fact, Wieand said, plans are for the students to prepare “some jingles to sing over the PA system to spur the classes on.”

The food drive is gathering steam, first with the bloggers at The Mercury’s Town Square blogging site, many of whom have taken up the call for filling our Community Media Lab with food for the need, identifying drop-off sites and food pantries that are running short of supplies during a time of greater demand and fewer donations.

Here is a map of places you can drop off food donations:



And now the children of St. Aloysius are stepping up to help. Donations can be made at the Gathering Center on the St. Aloysius campus on North Hanover St.

“Signs are going up in homerooms and letters and flyers will go home and we will remind the children each morning,” Wieand said.

In addition to providing food for Pottstown’s needy, the drive will also provide an important lesson, Wieand said.

“Community means taking care of each other and that’s what we teach our kids,” she said, “that when there is a need in the community, they need to step up and lend a hand.”