If we wish to give satisfaction to our good God, we must not stop to consider what we would like to do, but rather what He wishes us to do. Our Lord will know where to find you when He intends to give you other work to do.
-St. Louise de Marillac
Each year, throughout the school year, our school serves many families and individuals in need who live within mere miles of us. And we are found by them. Sometimes it starts with a simple phone call, an offhand mention in the lobby, or a note that finds its way to our door. These are our calls to service.
Is a Catholic, charitable organization founded in 1900 by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. For more than 114 years, they’ve empowered children and families struggling with poverty, neglect, abuse and severe behavioral issues to lead responsible lives and develop healthy and meaningful relationships built on faith, hope and love in the Pittsburgh area. Several years ago the Holy Family Institute asked our school to donate back to school clothes for the families they supported. Since that time, our school families have continued to make very generous donations to them through our annual clothing drive at the beginning of each school year.
Is a non-profit organization which provides clients with confidential “free” (because of donations from the community) medical care and compassionate peer counseling. They reach out to men and women who come through their door to discuss plans they have for their lives and the life of their unborn child, they listen to their hopes and consider their future. They offer Christ-centered, positive solutions to life-affirming options. Each year a “baby bottle campaign” begins in the month of October. The bottles are distributed to the students and they are asked to fill these bottles with loose change, bills or checks. Last year our donations helped to save 17 lives!
Started in 2002, when the Felician Sisters of Coraopolis were asked to aid in revitalizing a community facing great hardships. This Mooncrest neighborhood is filled with single parent families who can barely make ends meet. Most of the children living here come home to empty houses, with little food, no computer to access for homework and no supervision. The Mooncrest Community Center has grown, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Felician Sisters, from a very comprehensive after school program for children into a true outreach program for all ages of this community. The center just recently added programs for teens and adults including GED, money management and parenting sessions.
Each year before the week of Thanksgiving, each student at St. Louise is assigned an item(s) to donate. This food drive provides approximately 40 Mooncrest families with a complete Thanksgiving dinner, and enough additional food to help feed each family for a few weeks. The food bins and turkeys are delivered to the community center by a few students, Mr. Klase and parent volunteers. In addition to the food drive, junior high students also bake holiday breads in LeGras parish hall the day prior to delivery so each family has a freshly baked dessert for the holiday.
Form an integral part of the educational ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Rooted in the Gospel, St. Anthony School Programs provides moral and spiritual formation, an academic course of studies and vocational training for students aged 5 to 21 with developmental disabilities. The program seeks to maximize the individual student’s potential for academic learning, to foster self-respect and confidence and to develop competence in employment and living skills. A few weeks before Advent, the junior high students wrapped and embellished bundles of Advent candles with Advent prayer cards and ribbon to sell to the parish and school families. All of the profits from the sales of the candles are donated to St. Anthony schools.
Has no name, accepts only in-kind donations and yet has grown to serve the homeless, marginally housed and others in need. Each Monday night, the homeless are greeted by the woman who runs this ministry “Miss Nancy”. She meets volunteers (including ones from St. Louise) at a designated spot to distribute items to the needy who also have met there, knowing assistance can be had. The work is endless, because the need is there. Operated from her North Hills home and a nearby satellite location, more than 500 volunteers are rotated on a vast schedule performing tasks that include assembling small meals, packing grocery bags, making bed rolls, handing out clothes (washed and pressed after they’ve been donated). To support this effort, St. Louise organized a scavenger hunt during Catholic Schools Week, whereby all of the students were challenged with finding items in their homes that were requested for the homeless in our community. The response was an overwhelming success: hundreds of backpacks, sheets, non perishable food items, etc. were collected for this ministry. This service project will continue to be held during Catholic Schools week each year.
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
-Mother Teresa