Members of the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education community volunteer at The Champion Centre on March 19, 2021. (CHAT News Photo/Ross Lavigne)

By Chris Brown

City-wide giving

Catholic school community reaches out to help on Faith Formation Day

Mar 19, 2021 | 4:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Members of the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education were out walking the talk on Friday, showing students what it means to give of yourself and to serve your community during Faith Formation Day.

“Our theme this year is Putting Out Into the Deep. And what that means is we want to go and we want to reach out to people. Not staying in our small little box but really reaching out to others,” says Sandra Richard, religious education coordinator for the Catholic school division. “Sharing the good news to others, sharing the love of God to others. And we did that through our words at the beginning of the year and now we’re doing it through our actions. So we’re getting out and we’re being of service to our community.

Activities took place at each of the division’s nine schools, including making meals for service groups and blankets for new moms.

Elsewhere in the city, people from the Catholic school community took part in other Lent-related acts of giving.

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Some people were helping The Champion Centre move to the Mustard Seed, others did yard work at the women’s shelter and some helped the Salvation Army’s Caring Coats campaign.

Richard says students have been asked to do Lent services, and now the adults are showing what that means by helping the community partners who do that sort of work on a daily basis.

“They have been around and through this whole COVID situation giving of themselves constantly to help support our community. And isn’t it great that we can turn around and do the same thing and help them?” she says. “So it’s really important that we model that for our students and that we’re not doing it for us but God has called us to do this and so it’s part of who we are and we need to get in there.”

Other activities took place at Medicine Hat and District Food Bank, the Nurture Pregnancy Centre and at random locations where people were just out picking up garbage.

Richard gives thanks to all the organizations on the front lines.

“There’s so many organizations that work together to help carry our city and our community through tough times and it’s just a blessing to be part of that, invited into that partnership.”

The day began with mass at Holy Family Parish, live-streamed to each of the division’s schools. As well, 59 long-service employees were honoured today.