By Reagan Scott
for the Register
On Sunday, Nov. 2, the Parish Council of Catholic Women (PCCW) at All Saints Parish in Holdrege hosted a brunch to mark the feast of the parish, All Saints’ Day, which is celebrated Nov. 1.
Sydnee Jauken, one of the co-chairs for the committee that planned the event, and a member of the PCCW for the past five years, said the organization hosts a meal each year to celebrate the feast. This year, it was decided a brunch would be held after Sunday Mass.
The meal included egg casseroles, cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, waffles, and sausage. Jauken said the PCCW served around 100 people, and raised more than $500 from free-will offerings, which will be donated to the All Saints School library.
“We budget a certain amount that we give to the library every year,” Jauken said. “They need so much funding for new books. If people in the parish know that the money they’re donating is going to something that’s benefitting our church, people are a little more apt to stop by and eat and give a little bit.”
For Jauken, the event also highlighted how blessed the parish has been by the community of people who make it up.
“The main reason we can do big events like this is because we have so many people that pitch in to help,” she said.
As an addition to this year’s All Saints event, the PCCW also sold “take and bake” meals as part of a new ministry the organization began six months ago.
Charlotte Wirges has been president of the PCCW at All Saints Parish for the past three years. She said she saw a need that the organization could meet when she thought about how Jannelle Pfeifer, the administrative assistant for All Saints School, was always making meals for parishioners who were sick, had undergone surgery, or who had recently had babies.
Wirges said, “We decided, ‘why don’t we get together as a group and make meals so that somebody could just take one home and bake it if they wanted a home cooked meal?’ The motivation was to try to be able to help other people out, and so it’s not just on one person making a meal for everybody all the time.”
At first, a small group of women would get together in Wirges’ kitchen to put together meals, which they would freeze until they could be passed along to families who needed them, but the question of how to cover the cost arose.
“We started off by just donating meals to moms that had babies recently, people that had surgery, people with sick family members, and that sort of thing, and it just kind of took off from there,” Jauken said, “so we needed a way to offset the cost of making those meals that we donated.
“We looked into selling a couple, and people were super interested in a nice, easy meal for their family, so it’s kind of exploded.”
Since then, members of the PCCW have gotten together twice—once in the summer, and again last month—to make meals in the parish kitchen, which allows them to meet state regulations, and make many more meals.
At last month’s cooking event, six volunteers made around 65 meals, which they then froze and had available for sale at the brunch.
Wirges said the atmosphere at all of the cooking days has been fun, too.
“It’s more fellowship for us, talking to people and visiting,” she said.
The women typically break into groups of two, with pairs working on different meals and sides. They typically make shepherd’s pie, barbecue meatballs, chicken spaghetti, and cheesy potatoes.
Each meal comes with baking instructions and a note to ensure that all food is cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.
Wirges said the recipes for barbecue meatballs came from the school, the cheesy potatoes came from Pfeiffer, and the recipe for the shepherd’s pie came from the University of Nebraska website, where she found tips and tricks for making and reheating freezer meals.
The success of the ministry over the last six months can be attributed to all of the women who have stepped up to help out, Wirges said, but the parish awareness of the ministry has also helped ensure that meals go to those who need them. The school and church secretaries know if there’s someone in need of a meal, they can go grab one at any time.
“The support from our church on this whole deal has been pretty outstanding, which is nice,” Jauken said. “It’s hard when you don’t know everybody in the parish. You don’t know who needs what when people are in need, because not everybody reaches out. The church community really helps us identify people who are in need of some assistance.”
Wirges said the role of many altar societies is to provide candles for the church, clean, and provide food for funeral lunches. This ministry allows them to expand beyond that typical role.
“Part of doing our meals is more of giving back and trying to do more fellowship with each other, because we didn’t want to just be the funeral ladies,” Wirges said.
Going forward, Wirges would like to see the ministry continue to expand. Her vision is for parents and families who would like to have meals made bring ingredients to the parish, where members of the PCCW could help them prepare the food to stock their freezers in advance of a baby being born, an upcoming surgery, or both parents working.
Wirges said the willingness of the members in the PCCW to step up and help has really had a big impact on the parish, and the families in it. While they’re not in it for the thanks, it’s been touching to see that their efforts have been making people’s lives a little easier in busy or hard times.
“People have said that they really think it’s neat that we’re doing this,” she said, “and they’ve found out we’re more involved with wanting to help others.”
