The Charitable Giving Committee (CGC) of St. John Parish, Darien
What is the Charitable Giving Committee?
The committee was created in early 2007 by the Finance Committee and given the charge of returning a portion of the restitution monies (originally intended for charitable works but redirected by Father Jude) to the community
The committee consists of Father McGrath,Randy Heck, Christy Munro and Henry Satterthwaite. The committee evaluates requests and makes disbursement recommendations to Father McGrath. To date, the Finance Committee has authorized $40,000 for distribution by the Charitable Giving Committee. An additional $1,600 has been contributed by parishioners The Committee appropriated 24,500 in 2007.
The committee encourages parishioners to recommend projects and submit ideas. For more information please contact Christy Munro at 655.0632 or c.munro@att.net
Who are the intended recipients?
Our contributions will go to Darien, Stamford and Norwalk charities, parish needy, neighbors-in-need, special parishioner projects as well as a variety of Catholic Charities. Initially our focus is local so that we can see the direct effect of our contributions.
Disbursements to Date : 2007
The CGC has given St. Birgitta's in Tokeneke $15,000 to help them rebuild their facility which caught fire when hit by lightning in 2005. Further information can be found at http://birgittines‑us.com/.
CGC has given the Gallivant Van of Darien $1,000. The Gallivant Van provides door-to-door transportation services for Darien's elderly and special needs adults.
Additional information is available from Gallivant, Town Hall, 2 Renshaw Road, Darien, CT 06820 Click Here for a Link to the Gallivant Website
A gift of $2,000 has been approved for St. Joseph's in Norwalk which will be the initial endowment for the St. John's Scholarship fund at St. Joseph's Church. The monies generated by the fund will awarded to one or two students for Catholic school scholarships.
Our Lady of Montserrat-St. Benedict (1 St. Benedict Circle, Stamford, CT. 06902). Our Lady of Montserrat-St. Benedict plans to build a food pantry in a newly acquired church property adjacent to their church.
Additionally $2,000 has been awarded to CNEWA - Catholic Near East Welfare Association, a papal agency for humanitarian and pastoral support serving the churches and peoples of the Middle East, northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe. More information can be found at www.cnewa.orgDisbursements: 2008
In January the Charitable Giving Committee, at the request of parishioners Marilyn and John Parker, pledged $2000 to St. John Bosco Center in Kitale, Kanya. The monies will be used to send four boys to boarding school for a year. More information on the St. John Bosco Center can be found at www.boscokenya.org. Updates about these four boys will be posted on this web site throughout the year. Here is a link to their Website
How Parishioners can Help :
The Charitable Giving Committee welcomes any and all contributions to its fund. The committee thinks of the disbursements as "seed" money which hopefully would be followed by individual contributions. For contributions to the CGC Fund, please make checks out to St. John's and designate CGC Fund. Please specify if your contribution should be used toward one of the above needs or to the general fund.