Service at St. Paul’s Bonds of community strengthened through service to others

Providing a place where people can serve those around them in response to Christ’s calling is crucial to the mission at St. Paul’s. This past semester, some of these service opportunities included:

• delivering household items to those in need through St. Vincent de Paul;

• packing several pallets worth of food for the local Food Bank;

• hosting a blood drive with Red Cross; and

• helping individual families to celebrate Christmas through our Christmas Sharing program.

These events have not only helped the people in the community, but have allowed parish members to strengthen the St. Paul’s faith community by working through projects together. In taking on tasks from Habitat for Humanity, volunteers bonded as they painted railings and put up siding. While delivering couches with St. Vincent de Paul, students and residents listened to people’s life stories about how decades of volunteering changed their hearts to see Christ in everyone they met. While cleaning up a retreat center, volunteers were able to give back to people who invested and helped shape St. Paul’s.

These opportunities give student and resident parishioners a chance to assent to the call of St Teresa of Calcutta encouraging all to: “stay where you are, find your own Calcutta”.

Serving in community allows St. Paul’s parishioners to see the people they encounter at Mass in a different light, and serve the areas of Bloomington that often go overlooked. Through these small acts, service work at St. Paul’s allows students and residents to ultimately grow closer to Christ as we live as He calls them to.

Below: Students volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.