I. CURRENT STATUS:
A. SCHOLARSHIPS:
Contact Tom Luce, [email protected] 510-575-6326
- St. Mary Magdalene Classic Center. Year #14 is funded! Now we are funding year Year #15 We have to raise $6,000.00, August 2024-June 2025
- St Bernadette School: 18 students is now beginning its Year #5 with 18 students. Funding from a single donor.
- So, we have begun a new, second program: FFL-FOOD FOR LUNCH. Lunch for two weeks a month for a whole year --10 months. Budget = $10,000.00.
- We have been able to begin with $5,000.00 from several beginning donors! We expect to have the 2nd $5,000 soon to continue lunches for the rest of the year--two weeks a month.
- Our funding leader is seeking grant-giving companies to see if we can raise another $10,000.00 for lunches every day for the 10 month year.
- Check out our FFL page.
Contact Tom Luce, [email protected] 510-575-6326
CHECK OUT ST. COLUMBA PARISH WEBSITE:
II. MISSION STATEMENT:
Mission Statement: "As members of St. Columba parish, Oakland, Ca., “through African-American traditions, we are moved by the Spirit to serve." Matt. 25:40 Amen I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."
"Together with our sisters and brothers in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, we seek to share hope by collaborating on humanitarian projects, including sponsoring school children’s education, making small business loans to women, and developing community-based cooperatives promoting dignity and human rights by reducing child enslavement, violence, and poverty in Haiti. We also seek to establish a faith partnership with St. Bernadette and its Holy Family Mission, to work towards these goals together.” Sept. 2011
We are the Haiti Ministry Hope For Haiti:Education-HHE, working since the 2010-11 school year #1 with 170 students in 5 different schools. However, in year #9 due to conflicts and loss of income, we had to reduce to one school and 50 students.
We see Haiti as a special partner as described by Frederick Douglass,(click here to see his speech) "Until she spoke, no Christian nation had abolished Negro slavery." We acknowledge, sadly, that because of this abolition of slavery, Haiti has been punished many times so that the majority of Haitians suffer from poverty.
See the article in the Miami Herald, "To Really Help Haiti's Children, Stop The International Funding of Orphanages" by Namie Vernaelde, July 3, 2017. "Mired in poverty with no access to education and healthcare, many families say Yes to recruiters from orphanages in the hope their children will have a better life. More often than not, that is not the case."
III. MEMBERSHIP
Photo from 2020...
Front row: Sr. Marilyn Medau, Benay Curtis-Bauer, Joan Davis, Judy Luce; Back row: Maria Sandoval, Florencia Blackburn (died in 2023) Elena Gaudet, Tom Luce, Dolores Gaudet, Bernadine Joseph, Veronica Lofton, Sandra Christian.
Missing from picture, Carolyn White, Chryesetta Reid, Michelle Baptiste, Michelle Shute, Tommie Mayfield, Louis Labat. Chrysetta Reid, who organized the Fish Fry has retired.
Tom Luce is HHE Coordinator of HHE. Gentilhomme Jean-Gilles is HHE Liaison with the St Mary Magdalene principal, Mr. Haile Noël, and Father Pierre-André Laguerre, Pastor and Principal of St. Bernadette parish.
HHE was partially fiscally sponsored 6 years by another charity group--Sirona Cares-- allowing us to provide more students with scholarships. This was a generous service for which we will be grateful forever. We now will be totally sponsored within St. Columba Parish.
To donate, click here to go to St. Columba's HHE donation page. "Please Donate"
Haiti Liaison: Tom Luce [email protected]
HHE contact: Elena Gaudet [email protected]
Photo from 2020...
Front row: Sr. Marilyn Medau, Benay Curtis-Bauer, Joan Davis, Judy Luce; Back row: Maria Sandoval, Florencia Blackburn (died in 2023) Elena Gaudet, Tom Luce, Dolores Gaudet, Bernadine Joseph, Veronica Lofton, Sandra Christian.
Missing from picture, Carolyn White, Chryesetta Reid, Michelle Baptiste, Michelle Shute, Tommie Mayfield, Louis Labat. Chrysetta Reid, who organized the Fish Fry has retired.
Tom Luce is HHE Coordinator of HHE. Gentilhomme Jean-Gilles is HHE Liaison with the St Mary Magdalene principal, Mr. Haile Noël, and Father Pierre-André Laguerre, Pastor and Principal of St. Bernadette parish.
HHE was partially fiscally sponsored 6 years by another charity group--Sirona Cares-- allowing us to provide more students with scholarships. This was a generous service for which we will be grateful forever. We now will be totally sponsored within St. Columba Parish.
To donate, click here to go to St. Columba's HHE donation page. "Please Donate"
Haiti Liaison: Tom Luce [email protected]
HHE contact: Elena Gaudet [email protected]