Sharing our mission

 

The FSPA Ministry Fund supports a diverse range of projects. The fund focuses on projects that benefit the poor and oppressed who have few alternatives open to them. Grants frequently benefit women and children, minorities and rural concerns. FSPA are involved at some level in every project that receives funding. Some of the ways the fund addresses the needs of our day include:

• The hungry and homeless receive food and clothing and develop skills for living and working;
• Children gather for summer camps where intense reading, math, moral education, and fun are part of the daily activity;
• Women connect with women and regain their self-esteem so they can be reunited with their families and take leadership roles;

The ministry fund is supported by gifts from family and friends of FSPA. All gifts that are designated as unrestricted are added to the fund. In addition, FSPA tithe their earnings, and the congregation makes a contribution to the fund each year.

Ministry Fund Story

 

FSPA continues to be a constant presence in Cedar Rapids

Sister Joann Gehling, adjunct staff member at Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center, Hiawatha, Iowa, has been acting as a liaison between St. Rose Convent and Villa St. Joseph, Prairiewoods and the FSPA members and affiliates in the Cedar Rapids area. She has helped to procure as FSPA grant and an additional donation from FSPA leadership. Contributions have been made to the FSPA Cedar Rapids Relief Fund as well. Read more . . .

FSPA ministry grant supports Arizona school

Ministry grants pay for some of the art supplies used when Sister Janet Dalton counsels students or for an art therapy program. In addition, ministry grants help stock a back room full of new shoes, school uniforms, socks and underwear for needy children. Read more . . .

FSPA supports CANGRANDS kinship families

 

There are approximately 62,500 children in Canada* who are growing up, not in the arms of their parents, but with extended family members like grandparents, aunts and uncles. According to CANGRANDS, these caregivers are most often retired grandmothers subsisting on fixed incomes, scrambling to provide for their grandchildren who may have come from drug and alcohol abusing homes with mental and physical scars as a result. These “kinship families” receive little or no support from the Canadian government.

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) have awarded CANGRANDS, a not-for-profit organization based in Ontario, a ministry grant that helps finance its programs that include an annual conference and camp for kinship families. According to grant sponsor Sister Carolyn Heil, FSPA, of Toronto, funding for CANGRANDS brings kinship families together for education, advocacy and community with others that share their experiences. “When drug addiction, mental illness, death, imprisonment and other troubles make parents unavailable, kinship is the next best option. Pressures on kinships’ finances, physical and mental health is exhausting. These grandparents inspire me.”

Such pressures on caregivers are illustrated by one kinship family that shared its story with CANGRANDS and FSPA: “Even though I love my grandson and he is a pleasure to raise, we are struggling daily. The government pays me $146 per month to support this child whereas if I were no relation I would get up to $50 per day as a foster parent. I am now 71 years old and all my savings are gone.”

By the good graces of sponsor donations, the 7th annual CANGRANDS conference and camp held in 2008 accommodated 169 kinship families. While the children enjoy traditional camp activities during the week, their caregivers can attend two workshops plus an evening activity each day, “… all designed to increase and strengthen these families,” says Betty Cornelius, president of CANGRANDS.

As kinship family feedback indicates, the CANGRANDS experience is invaluable. “Being part of the conference and camp has been extremely helpful in several ways. First, it was just good to know that there are many doing what we were doing, and to be able to talk about the challenges, etc. together. Then there was the information sharing—discovering that there was SOME financial assistance available for kinship families.”

*This statistic is reported by CANGRANDS on their Web site at www.CANGRANDS.com.

Video courtesy of CANGRANDS, W5 TV and Laurie Few