Buffalo Junior Ladies of Charity News

by Marian Snyder

St. Mary’s Junior Ladies of Charity have been keeping busy through the winter months with several projects that brought joy to many around the Buffalo Diocese.

In December the girls adopted two local Depew families for Christmas that our St. Mary’s St. Vincent de Paul group has been assisting this past year. The girls teamed up and purchased Christmas gifts for the family members, including two new sets of pots & pans, clothing, toys and crafts. They assembled 15 Christmas stockings full of goodies for our 2nd grade pen pals at Buffalo Public School #6, filled 14 large gift bags of toiletries, cleaning supplies and paper products for the families at Gerard Place and decorated Christmas cookies for the residents at Symphony Manor. They also joined forces with our St. Mary’s LOC and worked on a joint project filling 100 Christmas mugs with candy and wrapping them up with cellophane and ribbon for our friends at Symphony Manor. The residents also received a Christmas card with each mug.

At the January meeting the Juniors made warm fleece tie blankets for adults & children and donated them to local organizations. Then, on Martin Luther King Day, we volunteered at The Response to Love Center in Buffalo, helping with various tasks related to the food pantry and soup kitchen.

At the February meeting the Juniors made Valentine cards & assembled candy treat bags for our 101 friends at Symphony Manor. They also made 40 beautiful Valentine cards for the Daughters of Charity who reside at the St. Louise House in Albany, some of whom had previously served at Sister’s Hospital in Buffalo. The girls also put together treat bags for their pen pals at PS#6. During the President’s Day break the girls visited Symphony Manor to celebrate Mardi Gras with the residents. And on Ash Wednesday some of the girls volunteered as servers and runners at St. Mary’s Parish Clam Chowder Dinner.

The girls are looking forward to more meetings & volunteer outings this spring. They just applied for a Hagar Grant from the National Ladies of Charity that will focus on teen moms, their needs and struggles. We hope to learn about different agencies in the community, visit some sites and see what we can do to make a difference!