Lending a Helping Hand Across the Street
Joseph H. Smith
Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: Features
Recently, students visiting from St. Mary's University of Minnesota at Winona also volunteered at the Home. According to Riti, the residents enjoyed their company. "They love to meet the young people," Riti said, "because it reminds many of them of their grandchildren."
The Methodist Home sponsors a program called Adopt a Friend/Grandparent in which a young person is paired with a resident and visits and talks with them on a regular basis. This helps the residents to interact with the young people and feel like a part of an important relationship.
Another component of helping the residents that the Home and MC hope to accomplish is increasing the availability of religious services for the residents. Because most of the residents are Catholic, there is a necessity to have frequent celebrations of the Mass, but there are only a handful of already heavily scheduled chaplains to minister to the residents spiritual needs. In the near future, it is hoped that a rotating schedule of priests from the Northwest Vicariate of the Bronx, to which both MC and the Methodist Home belong, will be established to allow Mass to be offered more frequently and to involve more clergy in the Home's work.
Students who wish to volunteer should contact Lois Harr at lois.harr@manhattan.edu.
The Methodist Home sponsors a program called Adopt a Friend/Grandparent in which a young person is paired with a resident and visits and talks with them on a regular basis. This helps the residents to interact with the young people and feel like a part of an important relationship.
Another component of helping the residents that the Home and MC hope to accomplish is increasing the availability of religious services for the residents. Because most of the residents are Catholic, there is a necessity to have frequent celebrations of the Mass, but there are only a handful of already heavily scheduled chaplains to minister to the residents spiritual needs. In the near future, it is hoped that a rotating schedule of priests from the Northwest Vicariate of the Bronx, to which both MC and the Methodist Home belong, will be established to allow Mass to be offered more frequently and to involve more clergy in the Home's work.
Students who wish to volunteer should contact Lois Harr at lois.harr@manhattan.edu.