03.13.98

Page 1

t eanc 0 VOL. 42, NO. 11 _ Friday, March 13, 1998

FALL RIVER, MASS.

FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETIS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly

_

$14 Per Year

Coyle's student-run food pantry serving community By MIKE GORDON ANCHOR STAFF

TAUNTON-The motto of Coyle and Cassidy High School is "Enter to learn, learn to serve" and students have be:en living such a life through their untiring efforts at the school's food pantry for some five years. On the last Saturday of each month from 9-11 a.m. student volunteers and coordinators hand out free bags of groceries to needy families. More than 350 such families take advantage of the food pantry each 'month. The bags contain about five or six nutritious meals put together by student volunteers who do shopping and preparation each week. One of the student volunteers is senior and food pantry coordinatorTim Saccone. According to director of community service and faculty coordinator of the pantry, Mike Cote, Tim has been intensely dedicated to the project over the last two years. ''I'm extremely proud of the food pantry and the students' efforts like

Tim's. There's amazing energy here," he said. That energy has spread throughout the sch.ool due partially to the success of the food pantry and the enthusiasm generated by students participating in the project. "It's very important that the food pantry exist because so many people rely on it," said Saccone. "I do it because it helps people and I get a personal satisfaction out of that. It's a chance to lend a helping hand." he declared. That personal satisfaction is being felt by a lot of students according to Cote, who said that at a volunteer meeting this year 79 students showed up. Although only 15 are at the pantry handing out groceries on any given Saturday, there are many behind the scenes who do the shopping and help with storage. Cote said that the idea of the food pantry came about when Coyle and Cassidy sought a way to serve the community a few years ago. After checking with community groups, teachers and

MAKING A DIFFERENCE-Director of community service and faculty coordinator of the Coyle and Cassidy High School Food Pantry, Mike Cote (left), stands with senior and student coordinator Tim' Saccone and headmaster Dennis Poyant in the pantry storage area. Each month student volunteers hand out bags of groceries to more than 300 needy families in the Taunton area. administrators decided to help pick up the slack when word came that a local food bank was closing its

doors. "They started it based on a real need they saw," said Cote. Since it began in October of 1992, the food pantry has given away over $75,000 in food and helped a variety of people including many elderly living on a fixed income.

The pantry is not only completely coordinated by the school and students, but also funded mainly by the student body. What works out to be about $2000 per month is generated by student fundraisers and donations. Turn to page 14 - Food Pantry

St~.~atrick's

pay:

The legend co~tinues By JAMES N.DuNBAR

, j• PRISON 'RETRE:AT- Bishop Sean P. O'Malley distributes Communion to inmates of the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth and to lay volunteers at a historic three-day retreat last weekend.

Spiritual retreat held at . House of Correction •

Bishop O'Malley offers advantage of a three-day religious Mass; tells inmates that retreat resulting from a clergy-laity partnership and joined with a merciful God is ready Bishop Sean P. O'Malley at a to grant forgiveness. Mass marking their spiritual en-

NORTH DARTMOUTHThirty-two inmates at the Bristol County House of Correction took

counter. When the inmates came together for the retreat on March 6, 7 and 8, it was the first time that

such a program had been offered for inmates in a Bristol County Corrections facility, said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. For Bishop O'Malley, who was principal celebrant of the Mass on the Saturday in the Turn to page 10 - Retreat

FALL RNER-The potato famine and the cplonial polities that drove thousand.s·from their land in the 1800s o(fer a wealth of stories of the diasl?ora of the Irish from the Emerald !sle. But none of them ~a'sthe drama of the story of St. Patrick, ~ tale told across the world wherever ~ish gather to celebrate the M¥ch 17 feast day of . their patron saint. . . Patrick is B~~bably b~tter ~own for the l~g~ndary !idding ~e­ land of snakestllan f.or hIS achIevement as a mlsslo!lary In establIshing the Catl1oli~Cllurch there. But more to tile !point might be that Patrick did use the three-leafed shamrock to teac~ the doctrine of the .• . . .i . Holy Trinity. '. 1\ Hist9rianst~1I us that Patrick, reportedly the son of a somewhat well-to.:do lowe~ official, was born about the ydr 389 along the seacoast of what was then Roman Britain. Kidnapped by raiding Irish bands, he was taken as a slave and bound over ~o an Irish king in a northern district. ' Much like the Prodigal Son in the parable, Patrick was in servitude as:a her~eiand probably not treated as wqll as the animals he tended. He' was later to write, "I was chastened exceedingly and humbl~ every~ay in hunger and nakedness." • . It brpught aF.hange in the young man who hap formerly taken illS Christianf3;ith'fQr granted. Indifference changed to days of prayer and c~ntemplaiion of the suffering Christ-as! well as thoughts of escape.:.. .:< i.._ Tlle,chanc,~,(.;.~mese\leral years later.. It included. a dangerous trek over several hppdred llliles·to the Irish coast. ahd return by packet ! ,.' TUni t~ page 8 - 8t: Patrick I .


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