Teenage Missionaries in the United States

Catholic Work in the United States

In the United States there is a great struggle with both physical poverty and spiritual poverty. About 46 million Americans live in physical poverty, and many more live in spiritual poverty. In both cases we need to alleviate their suffering and help them meet Christ.

Explore the tabs below to learn about the many ways our donors’ dollars are at work in the United States.

“The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
― Pope John Paul II

Dignified Living

Christmas Blessings from South Carolina!

Hardeeville, South Carolina, United States. January 4, 2023
The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area

This Christmas, YOU helped St. Anthony’s Mission Catholic Church and St. Andrew’s Kitchen in Hardeeville, South Carolina provide Christmas meals and care packages! The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area. Elizabeth Redway, a coordinator for the project, only had high praise and left the service opportunity with a grateful heart.

“We met some beautiful souls, knocked on many doors, and gave out hugs to those who needed them. The smiles on the faces of those in need when we handed them a hot meal and a bag filled with essentials warmed my heart and made me realize that we are blessed to be a blessing to others.”

This included a family Elizabeth and other volunteers ran into which showed them the true reason for the season:

“We met a family that did not want to take the meals at first because they said there were others that were in a worse situation than they were…Once we assured them that we had plenty to go around, they cried and said that we were truly a blessing. They could not stop hugging us. The dad was especially appreciative of the meal. He said that they did not always live on the street but that they had fallen on hard times and that this meal meant more to them than we would ever realize.”

The team is already eager to help again for the next Christmas season as they saw how many lives were touched firsthand by their servant’s hearts. We thank YOU and your generosity in feeding and providing for Hardeeville, South Carolina!

The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area
The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area
The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area
The volunteers delivered these meals and packages to 200 homeless in the area

2019

Thanks to a very generous supporter, this past Christmas – 2019 – we partnered with St. Anthony Mission in South Carolina with the feeding of over 100 people at their Christmas Eve Dinner Event.

St. Anthony Mission in Hardeeville, SC, is a mission parish of St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church in Bluffton, SC. St. Anthony Mission is a small diversified parish supporting a food pantry, The Mercy Mission.

The local parish and school, John Paul II Catholic School, hosted a Christmas Eve dinner event for local homeless in their area. The parish provided a hot meal for over 100 people along with gift bags stuffed by the local students from John Paul II Catholic School with personal hygiene items and a gift card to Wendy’s for another hot meal over the holidays.

The entire city of Hardeeville benefit from this local food pantry, which through its services create community and assist those in dire need of help.

See pictures from the event below:

The Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico – In Need from COVID-19

The Diocese of Gallup in the Pandemic

“We are, and have always been, ‘a poor Church serving the poor’, as Pope Francis desires.” – The Diocese of Gallup
The Navajo Nation has been devastated by COVID-19. You can help today.
Poor village in New Mexico
Kids at school in New Mexico
The Indian Reservations

The Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico, is harshly affected by the pandemic. As the poorest diocese in the United States, it serves seven Native American Nations including the Diné (Navajo), Hopi, Zuni, White Mountain Apache, Jicarilla Apache, Laguna, and Acoma nations. It spans over two state boundaries to completely encompass the boundaries of these distinct Native American Reservations and Sovereign Nations.

Resources like running water and electricity are scarce on the Reservations, creating a perfect storm for COVID-19 to run rampant. Without electricity or running water, how are people supposed to wash their hands–one of the simplest defenses against the virus?

You can help today.

Unlike the majority of Catholic World Mission’s past projects, The Diocese of Gallup has a combination of 20 parishes/schools, each with their own unique needs due to COVID-19. Because they are a mission-based diocese, they are heavily reliant on the generosity of others to sustain the ministry.

Mercy Missions Atlanta – Feeding the Children of Georgia

Providing Meals to Young Students in Georgia

Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 within the United States, it has become especially important to stay healthy, safe, and well-nourished. Unfortunately, many families were unprepared to stay home for an extended period of time and are currently struggling to put food on the table.

United States Mercy Missions

This Summer, in partnership with Smart Lunch Smart Kid (SLSK), Mercy Missions Atlanta is taking action by  providing meals to children who rely on the government and school systems for food during the school year. Since the pandemic, regular in-person school years were cut short, extending the need for those dependent on the school system for food.

With your help, Mercy Missions Atlanta and Smart Lunch Smart Kid can provide 1,200 children with meal-boxes that provide nourishment for an entire day. Each meal-box contains prayer cards and 3 nutritious meals, for a total of 3,600 meals! This mission will directly serve school-aged children across the state of Georgia including the cities of Smyrna, Atlanta, Roswell, etc. Furthermore, the project will teach young missionaries to serve through teamwork and hands-on activities.

COVID-19 has made it difficult for many organizations to reach the same volume that they would under normal circumstances. To combat this limitation, all meals will be collected and packed by Mercy Missions Atlanta’s young adults to then be distributed by Smart Lunch Smart Kids at designated “drop sites”.

At Catholic World Mission, we support the initiative of Mercy Missions Atlanta and Smart Lunch Smart Kids (SLSK) to alleviate the hunger of young children around Georgia.  Click on the green button on this page to donate.

US Mercy Mission for Covid
Mercy Missions Atlanta

COVID-19 Response – Feeding Local Homeless

Sharing Love, Sharing Lunch

We are all being hit hard in different ways due to the spread of the Coronavirus, but one group being hit in a drastic way is the homeless. Many food banks and charitable organizations are no longer able to provide support to the homeless. The homeless are therefore without basic necessities such as food, water, and hygiene products.

Thanks to the generosity and quick response of three sisters and their family in Atlanta, GA, the local homeless are being taken care of!

Georgia COVID-19 food to homeless
Free lunch Covid-19 in Georgia

The three sisters are: Natalie, a medical student from the Medical College of Georgia; Sophie, a college student from the University of SC graduating this year with a Psychology Degree; and Taylor a high schooler from St. Francis High School.

Each week Sharing Love, Sharing Lunch prepares 80-100 packages, which include a sandwich, cereal, snacks, hygiene products, and an encouraging message each week. These packages get delivered to the homeless around Atlanta every Thursday.

the photos below are from March 2020

“The kind deed that one person in a desperate situation does for another – if we can’t get to someone in a wheel chair or unable to walk (we don’t leave the Jeep) someone always offers to help.”

“One child that had the biggest smile and started dancing around because he was given a bag of food.  His mother and his baby brother were happy, but he was over the moon with excitement!”

“Serving the homeless during the Coronavirus outbreak has been quite a unique experience due to all the precautions that need to be taken to ensure the safety of the team and those being served. Normally, when we work with the homeless, we spend most of our time trying to encourage and embrace them (often literally) and when possible share the Good News; providing a meal is almost secondary. With the Coronavirus outbreak many services for the homeless have been reduced or stopped altogether so we find ourselves in a situation where the primary need today is to provide a meal in a safe manner.”

Local parishioners of the Catholic Church of St. Ann in Marietta, GA band together each week (observing the social distancing directive) to pack and provide over 200 sandwiches and over 400 bags of cereal to be passed out to the local homeless in Atlanta every Thursday.

Click the image to hear from some of the parishioners:

Catholic Church of St. Ann - parishioner testimonies video

*Please note: all COVID-19 protective measure guidelines are being followed during the execution of this project. We at CWM support and honor the CDC guidelines and local shelter-in-place orders issued by the government.

Forming Leaders in the Faith

70% of catholics

“With Christ as the center of your life, you will never be disappointed” – Pope Francis

Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit we are responding to the many prayers requests we receive every day for your daughter, son, niece, nephew, granddaughter, grandson, neighbor’s child, etc. who have left the faith once they entered college.

70% of Catholics will leave the church after high school and will never return. We must help build the bridge that has seemed to collapse carrying faithful Catholics through young adulthood. This is the least served group within the Church, but the group that can make the most difference.

By partnering with Catholic Campus Ministry programs we will help bridge the gap in hopes of forming future leaders in our faith. We don’t want lack of finances to prevent students from participating in the many faith formation opportunities helping them foster a stronger relationship with Christ.

Read more in the tabs to see how we are beginning to answer this call by partnering with the Catholic Student Union at Florida State University. Together we can help young people find their community, their purpose, their faith and their mission.

RC Mission Corps

RCMC missionaries

Who They Are

The RC Mission Corps program is an apostolate of the Regnum Christi Movement which seeks to help young people have an authentic experience of Jesus Christ through active Apostleship in communities, schools and parishes throughout the world.

Since Regnum Christi has the unique purpose to be at the service of the Church and mankind, the RC Mission Corps Program seeks to reawaken others to the mystery of Christ’s love for them and to their commitment of living out their An RC Missionary is a committed apostle of Christ and the Church who through the charism and spirituality of Regnum Christi seeks to bring souls to God by giving one or more years of his/her life in service of God’s people.vocation in Christ.

Their Mission

The RC Mission Corps Program seeks to form Missionaries in Spiritual, Social, Intellectualand Apostolic dimensions so that he/she is educated and formed in the teachings of the Catholic Church so as to empower them to go out and “travel on the path of love” which God has called them on.

Parish Evangelization

Small group evangelism

St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Yonkers, NY

Fr. José Félix, LC runs St. Peter’s Catholic Parish, located in a very low-income area bordering the Bronx in Yonkers, NY, is a vibrant community with average weekend Mass attendance of almost exactly 2,000 people, a religious education program of over 450 students and about 300 kids active in youth groups. Hispanic immigrants make up over 80% of our community.

Last year, in order to empower the faith formation of the community, they created for the first time small groups that meet weekly in houses to pray and receive formation. In October 2013, about 90 small groups were created with about 900 participants in total. Though many of the groups persevered for a couple months, by the end of the year only about 20 groups were still active. The spiritual fruits seen in those groups, however, were astounding.

This drop-off can be attributed to many factors: they’ve learned a lot about the infrastructure necessary for the leadership of the initiative, how to get all parish groups on board, and what forms of follow-up are effective, but most of all what hurt them was the almost complete lack of good Catholic material for small group formation.

Menu