St. Dominic Catholic Church

Pastor's Corner

May 21, 2017

Dear brothers and sisters, next weekend Fr. Cyrus Gallagher, OFM Cap. will be here to preach the weekend Masses and to offer you the opportunity to sponsor a child or an aged person in the Philippines, India, or a country in Africa or Latin America through an organization called Unbound (www.unbound.org). Unbound was founded by lay Catholics and operates from two basic premises: 1) Families make the best decisions about how to overcome the challenges they face, and 2) Small groups of people working together build lasting support structures for a community.

Over the last 24 years I have sponsored three children, two girls from the Philippines who are now adults with families of their own, and now a young boy, Jeison, from Guatemala.  There are many reasons I support Unbound.  For one thing, 92.6% of the money they collect goes to the projects they fund.  Their financial reporting is transparent and online. My support helps my sponsored child and his family with tools to achieve self-sufficiency.

Unbound has local staff members who work with sponsored families on how to best use their benefits to achieve personal and family goals. This may include resources for nutrition, health care, education and skills training, improved living conditions or seed capital for a small business or farm.

I receive an annual report on my sponsored child and his family, and I regularly receive handwritten notes from him. Unbound gives me suggestions so that when I respond, my correspondence highlights the similarities, not the differences, in our lives.  I can also send letters to him via the internet which the local office will print out and give to him.

Jeison tells me he is in catechism classes and he recently received his first Holy Communion. I tell him a bit about what is happening in our parish and in my life.  He knows my parents died and tells me he prays for them, and for me.  I, in turn, pray for him and his family.  Every letter I receive from him is decorated with scenes from his life.

I encourage you and your family to consider sponsoring a child or an elder.  For just over a dollar a day, you can change someone’s life.