In the heart of Haughville on the corner of North Holmes Avenue & West St. Clair Street on the near westside of Indianapolis, Indiana.

(August 2008)

Parish Partners was originally established by David Hood and Debbie Northard from Holy Trinity along with various members of the St. Anthony and St. Barnabas Parishes in June 2007.

At that time their goal was to, and continues to be, a relationship with the 3 Parishes in the area of Choir rotation.  Holy Trinity has approximately 20 choir members; St. Anthony has approximately 25 choir members; and, St. Barnabas has approximately 50 choir member.  St. Barnabas’ choir has visited and performed at St. Anthony Church.  Plans are in the works for each parish’s choir to visit and perform at each of the other parishes on an occasional and on-going basis.

Holy Trinity developed the idea of a parish Cookbook and asked St. Barnabas to join the project by including their favorite recipes.  Pleasures from the Good Earth Parish Partners Cookbook is now available for purchase in the back of church.  The new cookbook has many new recipes as well as some old favorites from past Holy Trinity cookbooks.

Eventually, Holy Trinity’s branch of Parish Partners fell under the direction of the Stewardship Commission.  Beginning in January of 2008, Pam and Ray Brooking and Kathy Ivancic started meeting monthly with members of St. Anthony and St. Barnabas at St. Anthony’s Providence Center.

Parish Partners will be hosting a NEIGHBORHOOD CLEAN-UP DAY on Saturday, September 13th.  Details will follow in the September issue of The Trinitarian.

Part One in a Two Part Series

To be continued in the September issue of The Trinitarian . . . . . .

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Parish Partners

(September)

(Continued from the August issue of The Trinitarian.)

Part Two in a Two Part Series

In January Parish Partners along with 2 members from Sacred Heart Parish met to discuss the Parish Partners implementation of a project similar to Sacred Heart’s group called Angels From The Heart.  Angels From the Heart has been in operation for six years.  The 2 gentlemen from Sacred Heart explained that individuals, churches and organizations make donations of manpower and money to Angels From the Heart for the various upcoming projects that have been chosen to be completed in September for that particular year.  Angels From the Heart primarily spends a day devoted to making various types of home repairs for those in their neighborhood who are unable to do for themselves because of infirmity, low income, or age, etc.

Since this is the first year for Parish Partners to have this type of project, we are starting small.  Our goal on Saturday, September 13th is to remove neighborhood litter from the streets and common areas starting at West 10th Street down Holmes Avenue passed Holy Trinity Church to New York Street and from West Michigan Street down Warman Avenue passed St. Anthony Church to New York Street and the short streets between Holmes and Warman.  We will be inviting our neighbors in the projected area, via postcards and door flyers to participate by working in their own yards on this NEIGHBORHOOD CLEAN-UP DAY.

Our plan, along with supplies of gloves, trash bags, shovels, a dumpster, etc. supplied by Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, is to pick up litter, clean up the streets and plant mums at both Holy Trinity and St. Anthony Churches and Rectories.  Our long-term goal for the project is to encourage home and neighborhood pride and in doing this hopefully to help cut down on neighborhood crime.  We are hoping to round up approximately 50 to 75 volunteers to help with the project.  Volunteers will be divided into groups, with each group being assigned leaders/mentors for guidance and direction.

We will start at 8:00 a.m. at Holy Trinity with prayer and coffee and donuts and finish up at the park across from St. Anthony at approximately 12 noon, with prayer and lunch to include all of the volunteers and leaders.

We are contacting several organizations and merchants along with Marian College, Ritter High School, IUPUI and Kroger to help us with our manpower and donations of food items.

We will also be providing all volunteers and leaders with lime green (for easy detection in the streets) T-shirts and also green for Mother Earth.  We will also be having one neighborhood postcard mailing, 2 neighborhood flyer distributions and yard signs, etc. as advertisement and to encourage our neighbors to help with the neighborhood clean-up in their own yards.

We invite you as fellow parishioners to meet us at Holy Trinity on Saturday, September 13th at 8:00 a.m. to help spread the good news by helping with our NEIGHBORHOOD CLEAN-UP DAY.

If you would like to volunteer for our NEIGHBORHOOD CLEAN-UP DAY, please call Ray Brooking at 745-2686 or e-mail him at rbrookin@indy.rr.com.

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Parish Partners Neighborhood Clean-up Day

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Summarization

(October 2008)

Approximately 20 people from or associated with Holy Trinity participated in the Clean-up.  They were Father John, Ray, Brooking, Carol Douglas, Ed Halloran, Kathy Ivancic, Jason Kashman, Joe Lazar, Pat Murrell and four girls from St. Catherine of Siena, Jr. Daughter Court #109, and Steve and Nancy Rasmussen, Dan & Patty Sebanc, Jerry Watson (life long Holy Trinity member and member of the Slovenian choir) and Bill and GiGi Bartholomew and possibly others that I did not see or who did not have their name on the sign-in sheet.

Father John was our spiritual leader; and, he was in and around and here and there making sure everything was running smoothly.  Ray Brooking and Dan Sebanc drove pick-up trucks with other volunteers, including Jason Kashman to pick up filled trash bags, trash, and miscellaneous and sundry items, etc.  Carol Douglas and Patty Sebanc helped to organize and serve the sandwiches (provided by Subway), chips and apples (provided by Old Farmers Market).

Ed Holloran, along with Joe Luzar and Jerry Watson, a Hispanic mother, Maria, and her son from St. Anthony and a father and son from St. Barnabas worked very hard on Kathy Ivancic’s team, which planted 18 mums at Holy Trinity.  Six burgundy and yellow mums were planted on each side of the steps up to Holy Trinity and 3 rust colored mums were planted between the shrubs on each side of the entrance to Bockhold Hall.

While the mums were being planted and weeds were being pulled, other members of the team cleaned the litter from the vacant lot at the corner of King and St. Clair, and other members shoveled the debris from the curb of the street on St. Clair from Holmes to King.  (I have already been in contact with our Neighborhood Liaison to notify him that the grass/weeds on the southwest corner of Holmes and King needs to be cut.)

Pat Murrell and her girls, Steve and Nancy Rasmussen, Bill and GiGi Bartholomewworked on various other teams.  I do believe Mr. Rasmussen’s team worked on Father John’s pet project of having the overgrowth of trees, bushes, shrubs and weeds cleared from over the sidewalk area just south of Walnut Street on the west side of Holmes.

The entire project was divided into 16 teams, with each team having at least one leader and several other team members.

Eighty-four people’s names were on the sign-in sheet.  They came from Holy Trinity, St. Anthony, St. Barnabas, St. Christopher, St. Jude and Roncalli.  Others may have signed in if additional paper had been available.

All 100 T-shirts were distributed.  Several people did not receive T-shirts.  There were 130 sandwiches available at lunch time, with only 9 being left over.

Five members of Team Ivancic had other afternoon commitments and had to leave before lunch was served.  Other people may have had to leave early also.

Based on this information, the numbers of people that I saw and the work that was completed, I feel it may be easy to say we could have had at least 150 volunteers and maybe even a few more.

God provided us with a very beautiful day for our clean-up project!  All of my fellow Parish Partners have agreed the project was a success and we look forward to start planning for next year’s project right away.

 - Kathy Ivancic