Annual dinner hobors those who minister with poor
By Kathleen Ogle
Managing Editor
NEW BRUNSWICK — Those who minister to meet the needs of the poor gathered to share a meal and fellowship at the fifth annual Harvest of Hope Dinner Sept. 26 at Sacred Heart Parish.
Special guests included Bishop Emeritus Edward T. Hughes; Santa Rosa Bishop Bernabe Sagastume from Guatemala; Father Raul Monterosso, director of the Pastoral Social Office/Caritas of Santa Rosa and pastor of Holy Cross Parish, Chiquimulilla, Guatemala; and Father Robert Dhanaraj and Father Raj Susaimanickam of the Diocese of Thanjavur, India.
From local conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to parishes that traveled to Central America, the many ministries recognized at the awards dinner are diverse. However, they have one major purpose in common.
Father Joseph J. Kerrigan, director of the Catholic Charities Solidarity Team and pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, explained how solidarity with the poor unites them all.
“Our interest at the Catholic Charities Solidarity Team has been to promote solidarity,” he said. “If you go to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there’s a pretty decent definition of it: a firm and persevering determination to commit yourself to the common good because we are ultimately responsible for all.”
Among the various groups honored was St. Helena Parish, Edison, which raised $25,000 for this year’s Operation Rice Bowl campaign and was honored with the Global Herald Award.
“They are so far ahead of every other parish,” Father Kerrigan said. “They are like a Triple Crown winner that’s 100 lengths ahead of everybody else in the pack.”
Operation Rice Bowl is conducted during Lent to raise money for Catholic Relief Services’ global food security programs. This year the Diocese of Metuchen raised a record setting $79,884.82 of which 25 percent was returned to the diocese and distributed in grants for local food security projects.
Acknowledging the support of the parish’s previous pastor, Msgr. Armando Perini, Father Kerrigan spotted several pastors as he looked around the room and told them, “You can make that happen in ways that we can’t.”
Three parishes received special congratulations for making the list of top 10 ORB contributors: Our Lady of Fatima, Piscataway; Immaculate Conception, Spotswood; and St. Jude, Blairstown.
At the dinner food security grants were presented to Community House, Old Bridge; Imani Food Pantry, Edison; Catholic Charities Solidarity Team Farmers’ Market, New Brunswick; and Warren Food Pantry, Phillipsburg.
Bishop Sagastume received the food security grant for the La Morena Food Education Project in Guatemala.
Additional food security grant recipients included the St. Vincent de Paul Conferences of Our Lady of Victories Parish, Sayreville; Sacred Heart Parish; and St. Joseph Parish, North Plainfield.
Three local projects - New Labor, a workers advocacy group; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Unity Square Neighborhood Revitalization Partnership - received grants from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
Father Kerrigan acknowledged the support of Bishop Hughes for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
“When we began the CCHD in 2002, we hadn’t received any national grants. There was only one person in the diocese who was asking me how I was doing with the job and encouraging me, which is another reason we’re glad to have Bishop Hughes here with us tonight,” Father Kerrigan said.
The Flemington Family Services Office of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen, received the Partner in Charity Award.
Martha Rezeli, assistant division director, accepted the award on behalf of the office, which conducts various fundraising projects to support the Catholic Charities Solidarity Team.
“We treat everybody with equal respect and embrace the dignity of others. We partner with people in the community and those for whom we serve to ensure that their quality of life, the quality of life we want for ourselves, becomes the opportunity for others,” said Rezeli. “We are a team, a partnership and we believe that each and every day together we can make a difference in the lives of others.”
Bishop Sagastume, speaking through translator Nelson Torres, thanked attendees for the hospitality he and Father Monterroso received during their weeklong visit to the diocese.
“The word thank you is way too short to express the gratitude that we feel,” the bishop said.