Fall Service Trip

Subtitle: 

Grateful for the St. Therese Center-Karl Kumodzi Class of 2014

Date: 
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Quarter: 
Fall 2012

     Every Fall Break since my freshman year at Stanford, I’ve been blessed enough to have the opportunity to go back to Las Vegas – my hometown – with friends from the Catholic Community at Stanford and work with the St. Therese Center.

     The St. Therese Center is an HIV/AIDS ministry in Las Vegas that was started by Father Joseph O’Brien, O.P.  in 1998 to serve local families that have been afflicted with HIV/AIDS. They provide spiritual, psychological, and material support in the form of food and supplies to individuals and their families year-round. The illness is extremely expensive to treat, and so families are often forced to pay for costly medicine at the expense of being able to afford other things, like a Thanksgiving meal.

     That’s where we come in. We raise money to help purchase a part of a Thanksgiving meal for over 400 families, and then put boxes of food together for each one of these families. These huge boxes are not only stuffed with Turkeys, cranberry sauce and other Thanksgiving staples, but are also filled with things like toys and ice cream. After two or three days of transporting and sorting enough food for 400 bountiful meals, I’m usually pretty physically sore and tired.

     We’ll usually start distributing the food on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and on that day the line of clients will have stretched around the block by nine o’clock in the morning. However, it’s not until the families start coming in and I’m helping them carry their boxes outside that I’m reminded of the human impact that the St. Therese Center has on people in my community. Were it not for the work of the center, many of these people would probably not be celebrating Thanksgiving.

     But, because of God’s grace, the center exists and is able to pull together resources from as far away as Stanford to do the work of Love and service that Jesus did and called us to do. When we’re finally distributing the food to these families, I’m reminded of the immense power of Jesus’s love and of why the students in the Catholic Community choose to return year after year.

     Learn more about The St. Therese Center at their website, http://www.sainttheresecenter.org/

     Please keep our team in your prayers as we serve with the St. Therese Center from November 17-20.

Karl, Cesar, Sophia, Norma, Angel, Robert, Ryan, Eric, John, Lourdes and Fr. Nathan.

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are

exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities

that are born of faith.

 

May you use those gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing

you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing,

dance, praise, and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

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