Immediate Needs
We're always accepting donations, especially donations of food to support our pantry and lunch programs!
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-Flour
-Plastic Silverware and Luncheon Napkins
-Garlic and Onion Powders
-Imitation Vanilla and Almond Extracts
-Salt and Pepper
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The Last Days of the Holidays
We hope that you had a wonderful and restful holiday season! Before we closed for a week to celebrate with our families, we of course had to celebrate with our community at St. Peter's. We are happy to have had these opportunities to spread some Christmas cheer!
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December 15th: Blanket Giveaway
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Thanks to the incredible generosity of St. Monica's Church and many other donors, we received more than 200 blankets to distribute to our community! As another Rochester winter kicks into high gear, we're grateful to share some extra warmth with our neighbors.
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December 19th: Christmas Toy Store
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After weeks of preparation, toy sorting, and so many email reminders, the day of the Christmas Toy Store finally came! This year, we served 55 households and a total of 181 children, giving families the option to chose from hundreds of new toys. Our dining room, full of kind and energetic volunteers in their Christmas best and so many toys, looked like Santa's Workshop!
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Our conference room is in among these toys somewhere...
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Our prep area and dining room were overtaken, too!
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Thank you so much for making this wonderful evening possible. We have so many individuals and groups to thank for donating toys, especially Dreams from Drake, Alyssa's Angels, and the Marchand family. We would also like to thank Our Lady of Mercy High School, who supported five families who usually would come to our toy store in their Christmas Basket program. In the weeks leading up to the toy store, so many volunteers helped sort and intake toy donations. So many volunteers helped on the day itself, including shoppers helping families pick out toys and runners restocking the toy selection and bringing toys out to families' cars. Weeks of loving work from so many people went into this one day, and all of it paid off tenfold in the joy felt by the families we served. We couldn't have run this program without the donated time, toys, and Christmas spirit from our community of supporters.
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December 22nd: Christmas Dinner
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Our last hurrah of 2023 was our Christmas dinner! The combined efforts of staff and a huge team of volunteers prepared a Christmas feast with all of the fixings: ham with pineapple sauce, sweet potatoes, mac 'n' cheese, collard greens, rolls, and many other holiday treats. There was special silverware, Christmas decorations everywhere, and carolers!
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Thank you for making the holidays merry and bright, and for all of your support in 2023!
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We Have a Dream: The Many Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
Ever since Coretta Scott King's organization and hard work paid off in 1983, the United States has celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the third Monday of January. Dr. King committed his life to fighting the three evils — poverty, racism, and militarism — through nonviolence and dedication grounded in Gandhi's philosophies and devout Christian belief. His life and legacy has fixed itself in American culture, being retold in books, award-winning films, and classrooms across the country.
As important as it is to remember Dr. King, it's important remember that he did not work alone. Our memory of Dr. King is built on a "great man narrative," or a framing of history that credits individuals, usually men, with the accomplishments of a generation. This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we would like to remember less well-known names and their contributions to the America we live in today.
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Bayard Rustin (1912–1987)
Bayard Rustin was dedicated to civil rights from an early age. His experience studying Gandhi led him to be an advisor to Dr. King, as well as his proofreader, ghostwriter, and nonviolence strategist. He also was a fellow member of the Administrative Committee for the March on Washington, which planned the march. Rustin avoided the limelight because he was openly gay and a former communist, and he didn't want to jeopardize the public image of the movement. In the 1980s, he was an outspoken advocate for AIDS research. He was survived by his partner, Walter Naegle, who accepted a posthumous Medal of Freedom on Rustin's behalf.
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A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979)
A. Philip Randolph was a mentor to Rustin, and Randolph's main focus was equality in the workplace. Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful Black trade union. His work lead to the desegregation of defense industries, federal bureaus, and the military. He, too, was on the Administrative Committee for the March on Washington. Together, Randolph and Rustin founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization dedicated to the rights of workers and to fighting poverty, which is still active today.
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Anna Arnold Hedgeman (1899–1990)
Anna Arnold Hedgeman was first a teacher and then a politician, working for President Harry Truman's reelection campaign. Hedgeman was the first Black woman to work in a New York mayoral cabinet, and she was the only woman on the Administrative Committee for the March on Washington. Hedgeman went on to educate churches and religious groups on desegregation, as well as to be a founding member of the National Organization for Women.
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As Hedgeman describes in her first book The Trumpet Sounds: A Memoir of Negro Leadership, the men of the Administrative Committee often made decisions without her. She petitioned to include national organizations of Black women in the planning process without success and insisted on the inclusion of a Black woman speaker at the March itself.
Her book provides an essential perspective on the intersectional experience of Black women, existing in the overlapping crosshairs of sexism and racism. It was she who wrote, while reflecting on the generational struggle for freedom, that "...in the face of all of the men and women of the past who have dreamed in vain, I wished that Martin had said, 'We have a dream.'"
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Daisy Bates (1914–1999)
Anna Arnold Hedgeman's determination led to Daisy Bates's inclusion in the March on Washington program. Bates was the editor of The Arkansas Weekly, a newspaper dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement in Little Rock. As president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, she orchestrated the Little Rock Nine and ensured the safety of those nine students she chose, often driving them to school. During her speech at the March on Washington, she honored Rosa Parks, as well as all of the wives of the leaders present.
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Coretta Scott King (1927–2006)
Coretta Scott King was, of course, an activist leader in her own right. An incredible singer, she hosted Freedom Concerts, where artists of all kinds shared the story of the Civil Rights Movement. It was her and her husband's house that was the hosted meetings of civil rights leaders. Mrs. King has been called the "architect of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy," founding the King Center, an organization that teaches King's philosophies. She also edited books of her husband's speeches, and established a federal holiday in his memory.
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There is much we can learn from these and all participants in the Civil Rights Movement, whose momentum still surges forward today. At St. Peter's, we answer their call for equality and freedom by sharing essential resources with our neighbors, treating them with kindness and respect, and advocating for an end to poverty and injustice in all forms, in addition to the centuries-long oppression of people of color.
In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail", Dr. King wrote "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Every day, we strive to end the injustice that is hunger, and we do so not as individuals working in isolation, but as neighbors and friends working in community. We have the same dream as Anna Arnold Hedgeman, who is now one of the "men and women of the past who have dreamed," and we know that her dream and her life's work was not in vain. We let this dream motivate our actions, empathy, and dedication to service.
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Have any feedback on or ideas for our newsletter? We'd love to hear them!
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