Thanksgiving Issue

Chronicle THANKSGIVING 2017

Giving T hanks C

ommonwealth Catholic Charities is incredibly grateful to our community, donors, and sponsors whose outpouring of support and encouragement helps us provide much-needed programs and services to the most vulnerable.

During this season of thanksgiving, we want to share the following thoughts of gratitude from the agency, our clients, and our staff.

And most importantly, we want to thank you! Thank you for being a part of the CCC mission!

www.cccofva.org • Our mission is to provide quality, compassionate human services to all people, especially the most vulnerable, regardless of faith.

Serving With an Attitude of Gratitude There is so much to be thankful for throughout the year. Below are some special gifts for which we give thanks.

• A $200,000 grant from Bon Secours Virginia Health System to help establish a new partnership between CCC and the Sacred Heart Center to help Hispanic and Latino community clients of both agencies achieve greater financial security.

• A $35,000 grant from the Fox Charitable Trust to assist with oversight, coordination, and monitoring of care for clients with developmental delays in our Aging and Disabilities Services programs.

• The upcoming construction of a chapel in our Rolling Hills office to provide clients, staff, and visitors a peaceful place for prayer and reflection.

• The faithful gifts to our food pantries in Richmond and Roanoke from local churches—especially from Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Knights of Columbus, St. Bridget, St. Mary, St. Andrew, St. Gerard, St. Elizabeth, and Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Churches—who generously and consistently donate month after month without fail.

• The many wonderful foster parents who love and care for children in foster care in Norton, Richmond, Roanoke, and beyond.

• Car donations since July 2017 that netted $7,000 or provided clients a way to get to and from work independently.

• Our many sponsors for the Christmas concert to be held Monday, November 27 at Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond. We are grateful to the Cathedral staff for their generous help and support.

• Funding from the city of Norfolk to support CCC staff in assisting in a city-led effort to shelter homeless individuals staying at the Norfolk Emergency Shelter Team (NEST) during the winter months.

To learn more about how you can be a part of serving the vulnerable, whether donating a car, contributing to the chapel construction, providing food for the hungry, becoming a foster parent, or simply attending our Christmas concert, visit our website at www.cccofva.org or contact Donald.Miller@cccofva.org or 804.545.5942.

We are so grateful for your interest in being a part of the work that we do at CCC!

Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls.

2 | Commonwealth Catholic Charities

- Pope Francis

This ad reached over 25,000 people in Hampton Roads.

Program supported by Bon Secours Virginia Health System

Community partners like the Rotary Club in Newport News make CCC's work possible.

Chronicle • Thanksgiving 2017 | 3

Client Reflections

You have been amazing and thank you so much for all of your help! I really do appreciate [the help] and I am so glad we have been able to work with you! And I look forward to working with you more!

- A Relative of a Homeless Services Client

I am thankful for the chance to live on my own.

(The client moved into his own apartment after having lived with his mother for 38 years.)

- Developmental Disabilities Client

I want to thank God who was my source, but CCC was my resource, and God used CCC to bless me.

- Homeless Services Client

I'm thankful to CCC for helping me to be a better partner, father, person. You helped save my family.

- Counseling Client We are so thankful to have the chance to not only raise our son, but to share the story of how we came to be a family. Having an open adoption may seem intimidating or even scary to some, but it actually takes fear out of the equation. We get the opportunity to have this special relationship with a person who changed our lives, including our son's, in the most selfless way one can. We also get to share with him just how loved he is, not only by us, but by his birth mother who did everything she could to make sure he had the best and happiest life she could want for him. And he will get to have a relationship with her, one that is so precious and special because she will be able to tell him why she gave him this alternative life...Because she loves him as much as the parents she chose for him do.

- Adoption Clients Thanks so much for your help. A little kindness makes such a difference in a day. Your thoughtfulness certainly made a difference in mine.

- Guardianship Client

4 | Commonwealth Catholic Charities

Staff Reflections I am thankful to be able to help so many families out in the community. Not only do we provide food and clothing to the community, but also direct families to other useful resources.

- Melissa Owen I am thankful that I work for an organization that has allowed me to continue a family tradition of perpetuating our Catholic heritage, from my ancestors at Ellis Island unto now by the work that I do. I am incredibly appreciative of doing The Lord’s Work.

- Eric Graetzer

I’m really thankful for my staff. Each and every one are filled with unique gifts which drive their passion to see lives change for the better. They challenge me and encourage me at the same time. I often stand in awe at their willingness to go above and beyond what is expected without being asked. I’m also thankful to work for an agency which is committed to restoring hope to the most vulnerable.

- Sid Alvarado I am thankful for the opportunity to serve the impoverished people of far southwest Virginia whose resources are extremely limited. CCC is one of only three non-profit agencies providing financial assistance to the people of Wise County and surrounding counties. The presence of CCC in our area is a blessing to many.

- Shelly Burchfield We are so very grateful for our Roanoke partners, the Refugee Mental Health Council and the Refugee Dialogue group, whose support and coordination assist us in helping refugees more successfully settle into our community.

- Roanoke Staff

Chronicle • Thanksgiving 2017 | 5

Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion

into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

- Melody Beattie

Family Opens its Heart and Home

The following story first appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch, Oct. 21, 2017 and tells the story of unaccompanied refugee minors who came to Virginia through Commonwealth Catholic Charities.

The two youths profiled in this story were fostered by Pam and Robert Woltz.

Pam and Robert Woltz have long opened their home to children, offering shelter in emergency or respite situations.

When Silvia Garcia Murcia and Ana Tello-Durán needed a place to live, the Woltzes came through.

Garcia and Tello-Durán were having difficulty going to school full time, working part time and keeping a roof over their heads. When they considered dropping out of school or cutting back their classes, the Woltzes stepped in and invited them into their Midlothian home.

Garcia has lived there four years; Tello-Durán moved in earlier this year.

“They have given me the experience of having a family,” said Garcia, who grew up in Honduras and left home at age 8 when her family split apart. “When I was little, I prayed every day that I would have a family. Now that’s actually happening.”

Pam Woltz said Garcia is “one of the hardest-working young women I’ve ever seen. She’s just so determined to make it. What I appreciate so much is that she is so grateful for anything anyone does for her.

The Woltzes have two adult children. Robert Woltz is a retired president of Verizon’s Virginia operations. Pam Woltz said she is saddened by what Garcia and Tello-Durán went through before coming to the United States, and she admires how hard they have worked to give themselves a chance at success. She said all she and her husband are doing is allowing them to focus on their studies.

“I don’t know what I would have done if faced with the same odds,” she said.

Foster Parents Wanted "If we don't have families, we can't bring in children, said BeBe Tran, foster parent specialist for Commonwealth Catholic Charities. "There are probably one million unaccompanied refugee children around the world that not a lot of people know about."

If you're interested in finding out more about becoming a foster parent, call Tran at (804) 545-5949 or email her at bebe.tran@cccofva.org.

“She’s like our daughter now.”

Tello-Durán is quickly gaining that status.

“It’s just been awesome,” Pam Woltz said. “What they do for us is enrich our lives and expand our world. It has been great.”

6 | Commonwealth Catholic Charities

By Bill Lohmann, Photo by Alexa Welch Edlund Richmond Times-Dispatch

The world is full of beauty when the heart is full of love and thankfulness.

- unknown

Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.

- Mother Teresa

At

CCC, we are blessed to have volunteers with hearts that love and hands that serve through many of our programs. We have those who place calls to isolated seniors and those who teach English to refugees. Our baby clothes closets and food pantries have volunteers who faithfully sort and stock the many items that are regularly donated.

We are so thankful to each and every person whose sacrifice and dedication make CCC a better organization.

Chronicle • Thanksgiving 2017 | 7

1601 Rolling Hills Drive Richmond, VA 23229 (804) 285-5900 511 West Grace Street Richmond, VA 23220 (804) 648-4177

821 W. 21st Street, Suite 205 Norfolk, VA 23517 (757) 256-6272 507 Park Avenue SW Norton, VA 24273 (276) 679-1195

541 Luck Avenue SW Suite 118 Roanoke, VA 24016 (540) 342-0411

918 Harris Street Charlottesville, VA 22903 (434) 974-6880

820 Campbell Avenue, SW Roanoke, VA 24016 (540) 342-7561 12284 Warwick Boulevard Suite 1-A Newport News, VA 23606 (757) 247-3600

827 Commerce Street Petersburg, VA 23803 (804) 733-6207 (804) 733-0099

www.cccofva.org

grat i tude •

•

the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Chronicle

NEWSLETTER • THANKSGIVING 2017