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July 15, 2021Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent
WORCESTER - Tom Flynn figures it’s only fitting that the Legacy of Hope collection will help fund a school in Haiti that Christ the King Parish has supported for eight years.
“It’s very good,” the Christ the King parishioner said, “because the name itself is the mission that we at Christ the King have had for the school in Haiti. We’re providing hope for them that they didn’t have previously.”
Christ the King parishioners donate $700 a month to Notre Dame du Lourdes School, which is administered by Immaculate Conception Parish in Les Anglais, Haiti, to pay for the salaries of about a dozen teachers and two or three cooks, as well as books and uniforms. Most importantly, the funds also enable the several hundred students to eat one hot meal a day.
“Otherwise, they wouldn’t be eating at all,” said Sue Flynn, Tom’s wife.
The school had been cooking outdoors until Christ the King paid for the construction of an indoor kitchen six or seven years ago.
The Flynns are members of the Notre Dame du Lourdes School committee at Christ the King.
Ninety-five Christ the King families donated to the initial fundraiser, and some continued to contribute, but more needed to be done to maintain the financial support.
So the parish earmarked the school as one of the beneficiaries of the donations that parishioners made to the Worcester Diocese’s Legacy of Hope capital campaign.
“It’s very, very important that we do this type of outreach,” Mr. Flynn said. “I feel we have an obligation to help underprivileged areas. We do plenty in our own community and in our own country. As Catholics and Christians, we all have outreach programs that we are involved in, but to have this outreach with this school is very, very important. We’ve seen the results of our prayers and our monetary contributions that have shown to be a great advantage to the children down there.”
“The only chance they have to turn the country around is education,” Christ the King pastor Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan said.
The school was founded for the underprivileged in a region of Haiti that has been devastated by hurricanes. Haiti has long been plagued by poverty and corruption, and there’s been a spike in COVID-19 cases because no one in the country has been vaccinated. On July 7, Haiti was thrown into further chaos when president Jovenel Moise was assassinated.
Christ the King’s twinning relationship with the schoolchildren shines some light into the darkness.
Communication with the school has been sporadic because of poor internet connections in Haiti, but Christ the King recently received photos and a letter of thanks from the pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish, Father Wilson Exantus Andre.
The letter read in part, “By your gesture of generosity you understand that life is a gift of God. It is up to each of us to provide support to others, especially the underprivileged.”
Msgr. Sullivan sent the photos and letter to parishioners via Flocknotes.
“The photos that we’ve got have been really great to see the smiles on the children’s faces and see them having that lunch that our support helps provide for them,” Mr. Flynn said.
The students held a banner thanking Msgr. Sullivan in one of the photos, prompting him to tell his parishioners via Flocknote that he wished the banner had instead thanked Christ the King and not just him.
Msgr. Sullivan was moved by the poverty in Haiti when he visited with Bishop Daniel P. Reilly in 1996 and after he became pastor in 2011, he felt strongly that Christ the King should help out.
“As important as it is for the folks in Haiti,” he said, “it would also do a lot for us to have this connection. When you have and you’re giving to others, you’re always better for it, as an individual, but also as a community.”
A couple of years ago, Father Andre spoke in French at Masses at Christ the King and Msgr. Sullivan translated.
When Bishop Reilly and Msgr. Sullivan visited Haiti, they were locked inside a caged truck for their safety as they drove nine hours from Port-au-Prince to Les Cayes, where the diocese had a mission house.
Msgr. Sullivan remembers seeing what he estimated as 10,000 people with distended bellies sitting and begging for food on the street, only to have another 10,000 doing the same two blocks ahead.
Along his route, the air was filled with smoke from burning wood, the only source of fuel.
“The whole country is defoliated,” Msgr. Sullivan said, “because every little tree is stripped down for firewood.”
Msgr. Sullivan said he was covered with soot by the time he arrived in Les Cayes.
Msgr. Sullivan said the several hundred students include children and adults. It wouldn’t be unusual for a student in his or her 20s to sit next to a child in the second-grade classroom.
Some students walk five hours over mountains and across rivers to school and walk five hours back home.
Christ the King helps make the arduous trip well worth it.
“It’s just tremendous because you know the needs are so great,” Msgr. Sullivan said.
Christ the King’s other plans for its Legacy of Hope funds include hiring a staffer to reach out to families to return to church and such capital repairs as renewing the church organ, including renovating the organ pipes on the back wall of the church.
