Just a few days before Christmas, on December 22, 2008, staff and faculty from the Library and the Educational Technology Services department spent the morning at St. Leo's soup kitchen in Detroit.
With the help of the Marygrove community, we had collected several boxes of donations to bring with us. These included clothes, books, medicine, shoes, and toiletries. Joe Micallef, soup kitchen supervisor for the past 25 years, met us at the door to give us a tour of the breath-taking church. It was built in 1908 and incorporates beautiful stained glass windows from Germany.
In the basement of the church we sorted the donated items, packed bags of toiletries, prepared tables for the hot lunch, and organized the on-site library. Then we prepared food and greeted the 130 community members who arrived for a meal. Afterwards, during clean-up, we learned from Joe about the other services offered by St. Leo's, including dental, medical, hygienic (showers and barber), library, and legal services. In 2008, St. Leo's served more than 54,000 people - we feel so grateful to have been a part of this.
Special thanks to Dana Zurawski, head of Library circulation services, for first suggesting that we visit the soup kitchen.
Happy new year!
Joe Micallef
Phone: 313.894.0357
Email: maltesesaintjoe@yahoo.com
St. Leo's Parish
4860 15th Street
Detroit, MI 48208-2242
Mass schedule: every Sunday at 11 a.m.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment