. . .
that the Maria Kaupas Center is bursting at the seams with
Anticipation, celebration, and appreciaton?
According
to Pope Francis,
“Advent begins a new journey”
At the MKC,
this “new journey” involves learning about
the
history and traditions of Advent
during Daily Reflection
. . . it also means looking
outside of oneself to help others less fortunate by restocking the
empty shelves of local food
pantries,
.jpg)
The Maria Kaupas Center was proud to partner with the Junior and Senior
seminars of Catalyst-Maria High School and with the Women’s Basketball team
from Geneva High School in our annual Advent food drive.
And, most importantly, it means “. . .draw[ing] from the crib
the joy and deep peace that Jesus comes to bring to the world.”
Tweet by Pope
Francis (you just have to love a tweeting Pontiff!)
MKC volunteer and Maria High School alumna
Suzy Etsch (’75)
helped middle school students create rustic
nativity scenes that
eloquently capture the simple beauty of the Christ’s birth in the stable.
Anticipation of another kind
is an important part of each cooking class sponsored by the MKC.
Scholars can’t wait until
they get to eat the delicacies they create in the Kaupas Kitchen under the
direction of talented adult cooks. Recently, Dr.
Mary Roy and her
sister, MKC Board member Nadine Roy, Holy Cross Hospital VP Dennis Ryan,
and the MKC’s own Matt Whalen took turns in the kitchen.
In addition
to learning to make (and then eat) delicious recipes,
young cooks are learning to appreciate different foods, spices, and fresh
ingredients as well as
learning
kitchen etiquette and proper cooking
techniques.
.jpg)
Celebration has also been a
theme at the MKC lately!
The fall dance
class celebrated with an-end-of session recital where girls demonstrated
their
fancy
footwork and stage presence:
Here’s a Did You Know in a Did You Know!
Did you know that Pope Francis
loves the tango and used to dance when he was young?
A
celebration of another sort took place in
Sister Elizabeth Ann’s Sacred Sewing classes.
Our
adult seamstresses finished and modeled their most recent project, fashionable
bags (though some might say that the little guy with the pillow
really steals the show) and our junior designers
created Christmas
runners.
Yet
another kind of celebration is Praise Dance, a mini session offered to 7th
grade girls by Catalyst-Maria teacher’s aide Erin Bell. The girls are learning
to communicate their joy in life and love of God through music and dance.
And at
the MKC, a sense of appreciation always accompanies anticipation and
celebration.
We are so
grateful
for the gift of
our talented volunteers
for the adults
who come and give purpose to the MKC during the day
for the joie de
vivre the scholars bring to the Center every afternoon
for our many,
many benefactors.
The MKC is indebted to the following Foundations for rewarding
our work with recent grants:
The Edmund and
Alice Opler Foundation
Porticus North
America Foundation
We are also thankful to all those individuals who supported our
#GivingTuesday efforts;
thanks to your generosity
(and the generous match of Nadine Roy and Peg Weiser),
we more than doubled our goal and raised
$17,000!
We are grateful for the opportunity to spend quality time with
the people in Marquette Park
the children, the adults, and
coming soon,
the senior
citizens!
But mostly, we
are grateful to God
for the
opportunity to share the message of His
unconditional love
in an environment
that strives daily to bring Gospel values to life.
To
quote another of Pope Francis’s tweets:
“May we always say thank you to God”
