Fr. Tom’s Letters

Each week Fr. Tom writes a letter to parishioners in our bulletin. Every letter is comprehensive, including current information about the Parish, an explanation of Scripture for that Sunday, and an invitation to become more engaged in the life of the parish.

December 7, 2025

Dear Parishioners,

CHRISTMAS SPONSOR A FAMILY

St. Anne’s parishioners have demonstrated tremendous generosity these recent weeks; much gratitude for all you have done and given. I am unaware of another parish or local faith community that has drawn together to assist so many families at this time of year. For the Thanksgiving holiday St. Anne’s parishioners supported more than 700 families with all the necessities for a gathering on Thanksgiving Day. Our parishioner participation took all kinds of form from parishioners of all ages. Many donated complete bags of groceries; others made generous financial contributions; some transported food; many braved the cold rainy elements on the Saturday before Thanksgiving to organize and gather the donations. Some volunteered their homes to store donations. Seniors made sure their food arrived on time on that rainy Saturday; young students from school and faith formation organized their own donation efforts. Volunteers worked throughout the week to organize, package, and deliver our donations so the food would arrive on time. Our Parish Social Ministry leadership and volunteers organized the entire project. We were challenged “Can We Do This?” at a time when our assistance to 700 families was needed more than ever. Many thanks!

Now for Christmas, we face the same challenge, maybe even greater as we have requests for more than 140 children and toys to help Santa. Even Santa needs St. Anne’s help! This request of Santa is in addition to the 700 families for whom we will provide a Christmas meal as we did for Thanksgiving.

Time is growing short and we need to move quickly. As we provide Santa with toys and children’s clothing gifts, he needs time to sort all of these so that the correct child gets the right size sweater and the correct table game. Our St. Anne volunteers take the part of Santa’s elves and do all the preparing and sorting and delivery.

And as was the case for Thanksgiving, so too is the need for Christmas food. We will fill, prepare, and deliver probably about 2000 packages for more than 700 families. That’s a lot of cans of corn, boxes of Raisin Bran, and chocolate chip cookies, along with rice, pasta, and black beans! Consult the list you can find in the bulletin.

Delivery is this coming Saturday, December 13. Christmas may be nearly two weeks away, but the distribution of the food in a timely fashion requires our delivery process this coming Saturday. We hope for better weather this Saturday than we had for the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We can take the cold but keep away the rain and snow! We want everybody to be cheery and healthy for Christmas!

Help us as you can this week! Participate as you would like. More information in the bulletin.

Enjoy this second week of Advent!

Fr. Tom

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