'We Are All Helping'

Twelve years ago, St. Ferdinand Parish in Ferdinand began collaborating with St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis to assist the village of Belle-Riviere, Haiti. At that time, Deborah Blume, coordinator of religious education at St. Ferdinand, asked the Religious Education Commission to approve a request that religious education students collect items that could be shipped to the Haitian village via sea container. 

Items included school supplies, fabrics, sports equipment, tools, sewing supplies and personal hygiene items.  Approval was granted, and the response from students and their families was astonishing. Following that, the entire parish was invited to participate. Items collected were transported to Indianapolis where they were sorted and packaged for the trip to Haiti.

In 2011, Mickie Paulin, St. Ferdinand director of religious education, planned and facilitated the Soup, Sandwiches, and Stations project for Haiti within the parish’s Faith Formation Program. Adults found a way to involve students at every level of the event. Each year, on Thursdays during Lent, catechists prepared and donated soup; the students donated baked items; and the public was invited to partake in the meal for free-will donations.  The meal was followed by Stations of the Cross, and students participated. “Students were excited to be ‘working’ by serving sandwiches and manning the bake sale,” Blume explained. “It gave them an opportunity to experience the great feeling of serving others in Christ’s name.”

Funds raised by Soup, Sandwiches and Stations have helped fund a solar light project that enables Haitian students to study after dark; cinder blocks needed for the preschool building; and assistance in continuing cooking and sewing classes in the Haitian village. Support from the entire parish is evident by the donations received for their friends in Haiti, as well as attendance at the Soup, Sandwiches and Stations events.