The H.O.P.E program is an effort to live more fully as a Christian Community. The Gospel exhorts to "Love one another" and Christ's promise that "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me". It was conceived in justice and love- sharing our resources with the "least of our brother and sisters" while maintaining the essential support of our own Parish Communities,
H.O.P.E stands for "Help Our People Everywhere" and the uniqueness of the program lies in what happens to the money collected and how it is collected. Beginning with our September envelopes, you will notice a change in the way your collection can be applied. (For St. Martin's parishioners this change will appear on your October envelopes.)
Each week, as you prepare to use your parish envelopes, you may indicate on the outside of the envelope how much of your contribution you want to be applied to the HOPE program and how much to your parish community. For example, if you are putting $10.00 in the envelope you may mark $2.00 on the HOPE line and $8.00 on the Parish line. Or all of it on the Parish line. If you do not indicate any amount on any line then of course, all of your contribution goes to your Parish community.
As the HOPE fund grows (In a separate account), a search committee that is made up of volunteer members from both parishes search out and select projects that are local, national and international and not funded by organizations. In other words, persons to persons, community to communities. These projects are then presented to you, at Sunday masses, in the form of a ballot. You vote on which projects you would like HOPE to fund and the results of that vote are published in the following week's newsletter.
The Uniqueness of this program lies in the accountability that is attached to the funds that are given to a particular project. before a project can even reach a ballot, it must be determined that the funds are being used directly to helps others and then when they are used, there must be feed back to our community in the form of a letter, pictures or even a representative speaking at all the masses telling us how the funds were used. Without this feedback, The HOPE program would be just another fund drive.
Please consider giving to the HOPE fund or suggesting a worthwhile project for our parish communities to help. Let our strength and faith reach beyond our Parishes and touch the lives of our neighbors, here at home and across the world.