PROSPECT HEIGHTS — A Brooklyn hospital is helping to light up the Christmas season for diocesean Catholic churches with the kickoff of “Celebration of Light.”
Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park hosted a reception on Tuesday, Nov. 15, to launch the 28th annual Celebration of Light event.
Douglas Jablon, executive vice president of Maimonides, presented $1,000 checks to each representative of the Christian communities, the vast majority of which were Catholic parishes.
More than three dozen parishes in the diocese will participate in the “Celebration of Light” and will use the money to purchase Christmas decorations, including lights and trees, to adorn their churches.
The program began in 1995 when the sisters at Visitation Monastery in Bay Ridge asked for help with their outdoor Nativity scene, according to Brian Long of Long and DeLosa Construction.
“We sat down and had tea and homemade cookies with the sisters, and we were hooked,” Long said during his opening remarks at the kick-off celebration.
Msgr. David Cassato, pastor emeritus of St. Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst, who also is on Maimonides’ board of trustees, gave the invocation.
