“This is my fourth store!” an exasperated Lisa Shelton said as she stood in the aisle of a Rite Aid on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst on Sunday, staring at a nearly-empty shelf that normally would be stocked with baby formula. Shelton, who gave birth to a baby boy last month, said she was down to her last two bottles of Similac and was feeling desperate.
St. John’s Bread & Life, which operates a food pantry and provides social services to people in need, has received a grant that will allow the organization to address the needs of those living in underserved communities across Brooklyn and Queens.
When a family of eight walked through the doors of St. John’s Bread and Life last winter, staff members quickly embraced the “all hands on deck” spirit to help them. The family entered the New York shelter system from a different state with nothing except the vehicle they traveled in.
For nearly half a century, the Brooklyn-based soup kitchen, Community Help in Park Slope, Inc. (CHiPS) has served more than 300 daily meals to clients in the neighborhood without charging a dime. But, on March 19, it too succumbed to the coronavirus crisis, serving its last plate until further notice.
Sacrificing one week from their summer plans, 10 high school student leaders, some from the Rockville Centre Diocese, but most from St. John the Baptist parish, Bedford-Stuyvesant, answered the call to be bold when it comes to learning about their faith, courageous when it aligns with their actions and willing to serve the greater Brooklyn and Queens community.
Nearly 900 people attended St. John’s University’s 17th annual President’s Dinner, which raised more than $2 million in scholarship funds while honoring three men who embrace the Vincentian mission of service with the Spirit of Service Award.
The Halifax Sisters of Charity are giving $10,000 to three ministries in which Sisters serve in Brooklyn and Queens – The Maura Clark-Ita Ford Center, LifeWay Network and St. John’s Bread and Life Soup Kitchen.
More than 300 Sisters of Charity, Halifax, and their associates, along with clergy, family and friends, marked the 90th anniversary of the Sisters’ arrival in New York at the Immaculate Conception Center, Douglaston, Oct. 25.
