Religious education students collect coins to help parish in India

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
March 16, 2006

EMMETSBURG - Religious education students at Holy Family Parish in Emmetsburg are collecting coins to help a parish in India.

Last summer when Father Pappu of India was on a mission visit Holy Family Church, Karen Wuebker, DRE at the parish, was able to talk to him.

"He told me that he had a lot of projects in his parish that he would like to complete in his parish," said Wuebker. "I asked him if there was one in particular that we could help with, since we had confirmation coming up. He said the biggest project that he would like to raise money for was the project to buy a plot of land to be used as the cemetery for his parish."

She continued that as of now, when family members in India die, they are buried under the family's house. Father Pappu would like to set up a cemetery with a small altar so the families are able to learn to bury their dead properly and observe All Saints Day.

"He said it would cost $3,000 to buy the plot of land," said Wuebker. "On religious education nights, we decided to take a collection of coins from the kids. Each week a child would take a container home and for that week they would put their change in that. The next week they would come and dump the money into a big ice cream bucket."

The students have been collecting coins since the school year started. Wuebker recently took the ice cream bucket into the bank and the children have collected a total of $200.57, so far.

"The fifth and sixth graders set a goal that they wanted to raise an amount of money themselves," said Wuebker. "I think it was $175 just themselves. They are fairly close to reaching their goal."

When Wuebker took Father Pappu to the airport last summer, she talked to him about setting up a pen-pal system between her religious education students and children in his parish in India.

"He said that would be wonderful and his kids would probably love it," said Wuebker. "I know our kids were excited about it."

The students at Holy Family sent the first letter. Each child took a sheet of paper and wrote their name, favorite food, favorite hobby, favorite holiday, etc. At the end, they drew a picture of themselves. The letters were sent to Father Pappu and just recently they received letters back from India.

"It was along the same format as what we did," said Wuebker. "The kids were so excited. They were telling each other, 'I got this person and they like this.'"

From now on the students will have personal pen-pals. Each student will exchange letters with a student from India.

"It has started a relationship between their kids and our kids," said Wuebker. "We talked about how blessed we are with the things that we have. We can go out and buy whatever we want, whereas the kids over there have more hardships than we do. We talk about the blessings that God has given us and anything we can do to help others in situations that aren't as fortunate as we are."

Wuebker commented that she hopes the students develop new friendships through the pen-pal system and try to reach out and be helpful to someone else.

For the rest of the year, the students are going to continue raising money and writing letters to the students in India.

Anyone interested in finding out more information about the project can contact Wuebker at Holy Family Parish in Emmetsburg.