75 Years of Helping People
January 18, 2012
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In July of 1937, a young, dedicated Edmundite, Father Frank Casey, pulled into Selma driving a beat up old Pontiac. Horrified by the poverty he found and with only 50 cents in his pocket, he immediately rolled up his sleeves. Writing to his own beloved brother for money, Father described the conditions:
I saw miserable, destitute, sick, homeless old people. I started to take care of them right away... I fixed Lizzie Austin's house – roof, side walls, ceilings, floors, windows etc. Get $300 and send it. I know I should have asked you first but it rained in on Lizzie as if there were no roof...
Deeply committed to God's poor, Father Casey went to work to feed and alleviate their pain. He was soon filling soup pails, packaging sandwiches, bagging used clothes and providing medicines and firewood to people in the most desperate need. Within seven years he had opened a home for the elderly, an educational center and several mission sites.
Throughout the years, Father Casey's enthusiasm and zealous service to the poor captured the hearts of the Edmundites. We have continued his devoted work, providing the poor with education, medicines, rural elder outreach and the Bosco Food Kitchen.
But providing these basic and critical necessities has not been easy. In 2011, for example, a cold-hearted thief broke into the local Food Bank, leaving Bosco with a critical shortage of food. Later, our main freezer blew out due to scorching hot weather, ruining hundreds of cases of meat, vegetables and fruit. During these crises, you were there to help us. With your donations we bought food at more expensive prices and nobody went hungry.
This past year when I found a desperate, homeless mother rummaging through rotting food in garbage bags to feed her shoeless and ragged little children, I asked for your assistance. Once again, you were there to help us. Your gifts provided decent food for the homeless family and other displaced women with young children.
At Thanksgiving when a shocking number of unemployed and hungry
poor came to Bosco to wait in line for their only solid meal of the day, you
were there to help us. Your gifts served over 280 meals a day, 365 days a
year and filled 400 food bags a month for families, elderly and handicapped
rural shut-ins.
Every day, I need $340 to buy the meat and vegetables needed to prepare healthy meals at Bosco for hundreds of hungry people. For those elderly and handicapped who live in rural areas, our monthly food bags costing $15,375 bring desperately needed nutrition to keep them well and strong.
This year marks the 75th Anniversary of Edmundite Missions. I want you to know that I am eternally grateful for your compassionate response during the past year, which seemed fraught with natural and human disasters, including devastating tornados.
Together we continue the Lord's work in Father Casey's footsteps. We earnestly pray that God's living presence is in your heart and that you will continue to be there to help us. In remembrance of Father Frank, we come to you because like him, we are unable to ignore these awful circumstances:
Without your help not only are we powerless to continue the work, but we could not even have started it. Without you we could not live, let alone work. If in His wisdom God has given you the means to help...would you?
Serving the Lord,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
