In her role as The director of religious education at St. Michael-St. Malachy Parish in East New York, Vanessa Garcia-Pinedo said that she strives to maintain the parish’s family dynamic by having parents involved as much as possible.
“We live in a ‘drop your kid off and pick them up later’ world where there isn’t much of a family formation anymore,” Garcia-Pinedo said. “I try to interact with the families and keep them involved in everything that is going on in the parish.”
That approach extends to Bright Christmas, where she aims to involve all of the parish’s families in efforts to help those less fortunate this holiday season, including the migrant families that have joined the parish in recent years. She said the campaign is a lifeline for some of the children, and their families, who otherwise would not be able to share in the joyful spirit of the season. “We use those funds to do different things to help such as put together meals, buy Christmas gifts and be able to provide a little bit of hope for these families that have gone through so much,” Garcia-Pinedo said.
The Bright Christmas Fund was started in the 1960s by Don Zirkel, then editor of The Tablet, who saw the financial struggles many families faced during the holiday season. In the early 1980s, The Tablet’s Editor Emeritus Ed Wilkinson took the reins and helped the fund continue to grow. Last year the Bright Christmas fund raised nearly $100,000 that went to those in need.
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Since many of the St. Michael-St. Malachy families are Hispanic, Garcia-Pinedo said that the plan is to use the Bright Christmas funds to host a Three Kings celebration on Jan. 12, where the children will receive their gifts alongside their families. Garcia-Pinedo said she will also use the gathering as “a moment of catechesis,” where the parish catechists will give a short presentation about the meaning of the Christmas season before the real celebration begins.
Garcia-Pinedo, a life-long parishioner of St. Michael-St. Malachy, calls herself a “pure product of Catholic education” having attended Catholic schools her entire life. She calls St. Michael-St. Malachy her home. After completing undergraduate and graduate studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College and St. John’s University, respectively, Garcia-Pinedo took on different roles at her home parish until landing her current position as the director of religious education.
In addition to the Three Kings celebration, Garcia-Pinedo credits Bright Christmas with helping to pay for the Christmas Eve Mass angels and shepherds childrens’ costumes. “Bright Christmas has been a great blessing to us just being able to provide gifts for families in our parish as well as the migrant community who are in need,” Garcia-Pinedo said. “It means so much to us because it gives families a glimmer of hope and a sense of relief that their kids are going to be able to celebrate Christmas one way or another.”
How to Help
If you’d like to donate, visit thetablet.org/brightchristmas, or write a check made out to “The Tablet’s Bright Christmas” and mail it to:
The Tablet Bright Christmas Fund
856 Pacific Street
Brooklyn, NY 11238
