March 3, 2021

By Darcy Fargo
Editor

Parishes and organizations within the Diocese of Ogdensburg hope to be able to better serve the most vulnerable in their communities thanks to grant funding received from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.

St. André Bessette Outreach Center
St. André Bessette Parish in Malone was awarded a $275,000 grant for it’s St. André’s Outreach Center, specifically to help its Food Insecurity Program.

Father Steven M. Murray, pastor of St. André Bessette Parish, said the grant will advance the parish’s efforts to convert the former Holy Family School building into an outreach center.

“The outreach center currently contains our St. Vincent’s thrift shop, the Good Samaritan food pantry, and we’re looking to open St. Angela’s Café,” Father Murray said.

St. Angela’s Café, named after St. Angela Merici, founder of the Ursuline Order, will serve hot meals to individuals in need.

“The Ursulines were instrumental in the education of young people here in Malone for many, many years,” Father Murray said. “We thought it was a fitting tribute to name the café St. Angela’s.”

To house the café and to make the outreach center more sustainable, the grant will cover the cost of several renovations.

“We need to make renovations to the room and to the kitchen to house the café,” Father Murray said. “And the building needed renovations to make it more energy friendly going forward. The grant is intended to help you set up a program, but they want it to be viable and able to fund itself. Our thrift store helps generate income.

That income, along with various grants, allow us to be able to feed people (from the Good Samaritan Food Pantry) on a monthly basis. At one point, we had to go from monthly to every other month due to cost. Quadrupling the size of the thrift store enables us to generate a good deal more income, which makes us able to feed more people who are hungry through the food pantry and, eventually, the café, and the efficiency improvements will reduce what we’re spending on heat and lights.”

In addition to the parish offerings, the Outreach Center also houses Catholic Charities and Families R Us, a family resource center.

“We were delighted to receive this grant,” Father Murray concluded. “We were planning frugal renovations, but we couldn’t afford them without this funding. We’re eternally grateful for the assistance we received from Catholic Charities. They helped us apply for the grant and get the grant.”

Mercy Care for the Adirondacks
Mercy Care for the Adirondacks in Lake Placid was awarded $356,100 for a project the organization’s executive director says will allow a whole new population – St. Lawrence County – to benefit from its “Age-friendly Communities Initiative.”

Mercy Care for the Adirondacks is partnering with Community Health Center of the North Country to begin offering services connected to the health center’s locations in Potsdam/Canton, Ogdensburg, Gouverneur and Massena.

“The goal of the grant is to extend the model of Mercy Care’s Age Friendly Communities Initiatives to four new communities,” said Mercy Care for the Adirondacks Executive Director Donna Beal. “We’ve been running that program successfully in the Tri-Lakes area – Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and Tupper Lake and surrounding communities – for years. We now have a Memorandum of Understanding in place with Community Health Center of the North Country. We’ll provide the training, technological assistance and tools so they can establish their own program.”

As part of that Age-friendly Communities Initiative, Mercy Care for the Adirondacks serves over 100 elderly residents by relying on a team of over 100 volunteers.

“Mercy Care for the Adirondacks was established in 2007, and it was sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy,” Beal said. “They established Mercy Care to fill the need of relieving isolation and loneliness of elders living in our communities independently.”

With a staff of only six, and relying on its large network of volunteers, Mercy Care for the Adirondacks fulfills its mission with a three-pronged approach.

“First, we have our direct service programs – Friendship Volunteer Program, Parish Nurse Program and Caregiver Friend program,” she said. “Services we provide to the elders are all free of charge, and there are no income guidelines. We’re supported totally by charitable contributions and private foundation grants. We receive no government income, no reimbursements. The community supports Mercy Care through volunteer service and generous financial support.”

The second part of Mercy Care’s strategy involves community empowerment.

“We facilitate and host a Caregiving Working Group for Essex and Franklin counties,” Beal said. “And we have the Tri-Lakes Aging in Place Task Force. It’s made up of people in the community who want to help our communities be more aging friendly.”

The third part of the strategy includes education and advocacy. To meet that goal, Mercy Care for the Adirondacks typically hosts an annual educational forum at Paul Smiths College. The forum brings together health and human service agencies from several counties and gives them an opportunity to network and hear from top experts in the field of aging issues.

It’s the direct care portion of their strategy that Mercy Care for the Adirondacks first hopes to expand into St. Lawrence County.

“We’ll be working on the Community Friendship Volunteer Program and Parish Nurse Program,” Beal said. “From spring into fall, we’ll be training the trainers. We’ll be in St. Lawrence County working with Community Health Center of the North Country to help them recruit and train volunteers, and we’ll be training Community Health Center and their staff on how to carry this program on going forward.”

Beal said Mercy Care for the Adirondacks is excited about the opportunities this grant has afforded the organization.

“This grant is transformational for Mercy Care,” she said. “We’re living the dream of being able to help more elders because of it. We pursue our mission through partnership. We’re thrilled to have the support of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation as we create a new partnership with Community Health Center of the North Country. This support and partnership make it possible to carry on and assist elders in St. Lawrence County with the same kind of supports that support healthy aging in the Tri-Lakes Area.”

Other grants awarded
Additionally, the Roman Catholic Community of St. Alexander & St. Joseph in Morrisonville was awarded a $250,000 grant for its outreach center; St. Joseph’s Home in Ogdensburg was awarded $664,00 for a program to address “Various Social Determinants of Health”; and the Diocese of Ogdensburg Department of Education was awarded three separate grants. The North Country Catholic hopes to include articles about those grants in future editions.