NEWS PHOTO KELLEN TANIGUCHI
Sandra Richard, religious education coordinator for the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education, carries a box out of the Mustard Seed building at 435 N Railway St. to load a truck on route to the organization's new home on Allowance Avenue.
ktaniguchi@medicinehatnews.com@@kellentaniguchi
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education staff was out helping the community on Friday and a handful came to N. Railway Street to help the Mustard Seed move to its new home.
The school division’s community work is part of its Faith Formation Day, which is taking place on St. Joseph’s Day because the Pope dedicated the year to St. Joseph.
“We’re going to go out and reach other people with our words, with our actions, and in the process we’re going to grow our faith as well,” said Sandra Richard, the division’s religious education co-ordinator. “It’s really important for us to do a service project … we have all of our staff and all of our schools working on different things.”
The students had the day off Friday, while the staff took in mass at Holy Family Parish, which was live streamed to the division’s nine schools.
“We can’t all come together to celebrate our faith in Holy Family Parish right now because of the restrictions,” said Richard. “We worked with our priest and we have live-streaming abilities. We had a number of people that were there and then others were in their schools, in their gyms attending as if they were in the church.”
Following the morning mass, the staff started community work around the city. Richard was helping with the Mustard Seed move and she said others were doing yard work at the women’s shelter, making blankets for new moms, while some staff were at Salvation Army helping organize the Caring Coats campaign.
The Mustard Seed helps low-income and homeless people in the city, and Richard said they are helping them with the process of moving to the new location on Allowance Avenue.
“We are living our faith through service and I think that’s the most important thing,” said Richard. “It’s not just what we say, it’s what we do and what we do is because God has called us to do this.”
Richard says students are involved in service projects throughout the school year, but Friday was a day for the staff to step up.
“We’re role modelling to our students as well and that’s an important piece for us,” she said. “We also value all our community partners that are doing things on a daily basis to help care for our community. For us to be able to help those community partners is such a blessing and we thank them for inviting us to take this on together.”
The Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education has been following all provincial COVID-19 protocols while taking part in the Faith Formation Day activities.
