Jane Parker

The guest speaker at the January 5 Membership Meeting was Jane Parker who serves as Sacred Heart of Jesus’ liaison to the Village Churches’ Outreach.  Prior to speaking about the recent Christmas Basket Program, Jane gave a brief history of the organization and Sacred Heart’s involvement.  Mission Outreach, as it was called in the early years, began in the late 1980’s through the efforts of Phil Deveaux from the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.   He was the coordinator for about 10 years until he had to leave the Village for health reasons, as he was in his 90s.  Phil was followed by Jim Pike, the current director who has been in charge for about 10 years.  Jim is also from Holy Trinity  Episcopal Church.  According to Jane, coordinating this program takes a great deal of time to thoroughly investigate all of the referrals made to Village Outreach, and she has a great deal of respect for what Phil did as well as what Jim is doing now.  Almost all of the Village churches are represented on the board.

In 1991-92, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart began to support  Mission Outreach and has been involved ever since.  The Angel Tree Program followed shortly thereafter.

Jane directly addressed one of the issues that is occasionally raised by some that there may be a few families that receive benefits from more than one organization.   There are precautions in place to prevent this from happening, but a few may slip through the system.   However, there are so many families in need, that this issue cannot be a deterrent.   Jane related several personal experiences and testimonials to prove her point.

The Christmas Basket Program and the Shoe Fund are coordinated at the Village Outreach level by Nancy Waldo from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.   Based upon their knowledge of family situations, area school counselors provide names of students and their families to Nancy, who in turn gives the names to liaisons from the participating churches.   She tries to honor the requests from churches that may have a special relationship with a school or a family, but in general, the assignments are random until all families have been accommodated.

Jane then gave specific information about the 2009 Christmas Basket Program, and invited Ed Keearns to speak about his involvement and to provide some financial information.  Sacred Heart of Jesus made up and delivered 36 baskets - 13 by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart and 23 by the Knights ($1,000), the Men’s Club ($625), and 22 individual donations ($1,690) for a $3,315 total.  The overall value of the project was $18,000 when the food, gifts, and shoes are included.  The Ladies of the Sacred Heart had also provided food for nine families at Thanksgiving.

Other interesting facts about theChristmas Basket project include:

• Each of SHJ’s 103 children received 5 gifts = 515 total ($5,300 value)
• 23 from SHJ delivered the 35 baskets, spending $1,620 for fresh meats and perishable food
• $1,400 (2,800 lbs) of non-perishable food was purchased from Project Hope in Hot Springs at 10% below its purchase price
• SHJ contributed $1,495 to the shoe fund, with 307 children (sponsored by all churches) receiving a $20, $30, or $40 coupon, depending upon their age
• Jane bought 12 gifts for SHJ’s children due to late returns from the angel tree – gifts that arrived after the basket distribution were given to Potter’s Clay and Teen Challenge

In summary, the Village Outreach continues its mission started more than 20 years ago, and Sacred Heart Parishioners under the guidance of Jane Parker contribute their fair share in helping those in need.