I. CURRENT STATUS:
A. SCHOLARSHIPS: school year 2025-26:
Contact Tom Luce, [email protected] 510-575-6326
- Both Schools: St. Mary Magdalene Classic Center (50), and St. Bernadette (18) have now finished funding the school year 2024-2025. Year #15! for St. Mary Magdalene; year #6 for St. Bernadette.
- This has included money for FFL-FoodForLunch, lunch for two weeks a month for all students-not just our scholarship students-- 310 (St. Mary Magdalene and St. Bernadette)
- Both schools are seeking funding for school year, 2025-26. St. Mary Magdalene Classic Center (50) year #16. St Bernadette School: 18 students will now begin its year #7 with 18 students. The individual funder for St. Bernadette is no longer involved, so our total funding now will be for two schools. Funding now needs to be coming for both schools.
- We began a new, separate program: FFL-FOOD FOR LUNCH. Lunch for two weeks a month for a whole year --10 months. Budget = $10,000.00.
- Check out our FFL page.
Contact Tom Luce, [email protected] 510-575-6326
CHECK OUT ST. COLUMBA PARISH WEBSITE:
II. MISSION STATEMENT:
Our students at St. Mary Magdalene wear orange uniforms. We've supported them since 2010.
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 St. Columba 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. In 2019, an individual donor started funding 18 scholarships at the parish school, St. Bernadette. This went on for 5 years. In this past year, 2024/25, the individual donor stopped funding, but we were able to pick these scholarships (18) up with special funding. We now will fund a year #7 there.
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 (died Aug. 2024), 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]
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 (died Aug. 2024), 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]
