Recently, we were blessed and humbled to receive correspondence from a mother who is rightly and deeply touched by her young son Alex’s devotion to feed the hungry, in response to Pope Francis message and example of feeding the hungry. With her permission, we are running her letter to us to let you know about Alex, who made local news by donating the money he was gifted for his First Holy Communion to a local kitchen to feed those without food. We at Catholic Sistas were inspired and we think you will be, too.

 

I am a subscriber to your blog and would like to thank you for the articles and pinterest photos that you share every day. It’s really helping me along with my faith journey.

I wanted to bring this piece of local news to your attention. It’s about my son, Alex. He just made First Holy Communion in May and received money for the occasion from friends and family (they didn’t know what he was planning to do with their gifts). He decided to donate all of it to the local Ecumenical Kitchen. He is very inspired by Pope Francis and said to me “if we don’t help the hungry, who will?” He donated $465 and fed about 350 people. We spent the afternoon with the patrons and Alex (with his brother Gabriel and my husband) shared a meal with them. It was just beautiful.

Well, here’s the link to the news piece. I thought if you felt so inclined to post something where it would be seen by more people in the hopes that they, too would help the hungry and helpless in their local communities, well that would just make Alex’s day.

God Bless You,

Cristina

Cristina has also given us the link to her blog post that features more details on this story. Please visit to read more!

HOW CAN I HELP?

Now that you’ve been inspired – and how could you not!, you might be wondering how you can help! Here are just a few ways you can help out the homeless who are often seen {at least in my neck of the woods, in Austin} on street corners at stop lights.

1. Pray. When you see someone standing at the corner asking for food, a job, etc., toss up a prayer for them. Prayer may not feel like much on our end because we are a people who like tangible results, but prayer is always a powerful tool that we should employ anytime someone is in need. 
2. Bottled water. Keep a case of bottled water in your car for those occasions when you see the homeless out on the streets. When stopped at a stop light, you can roll down your window and hand them some water to quench their thirst. We used to see the same man at the stop light, so one day I handed a bottle to my daughter and rolled down her window to hand it to the gentleman. She got a kick out of helping and his face lit up to receive water from a sweet little face.
3. Non-perishable meal kits. Using staples around the house, you can put together a tuna and crackers kit you buy at the store {usually comes with a spoon and is easy to assemble}, some applesauce, a bottle of water and a napkin, and put everything into a lunch bag. You can even write on the bag little notes of encouragement that might help ease their burden for even a moment.

Do you have any suggestions you’d like to share? Please post in the comboxes!