CWL Projects in 2023

During the year 2023, The Catholic Women’s League of St. Bartholomew's Council worked on a project based on the CWL theme “Catholic and Living It.” The project was aligned with the core values of Faith, Service and Social Justice.

Faith: Commencing on Ash Wednesday 2023, for 40 days we meditated on an online Stations of the Cross: “40 Days At the Foot of the Cross” by My Catholic Life.

Service: Our Council held a “Food Drive for Indigenous Youth in the GTA”.

Social Justice: The third Core Value - our Council participated in a Social Justice Signature Campaign. Our passion led us to do two Social Justice Projects.

The two Social Justice projects were found on the website change.org.

Indigenous People deserve clean drinking water. We received 60 signatures from our League. Also, 35 letters and 10 emails were sent to parliament on boil water advisories
Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action. We obtained 40 online signatures from both members and their families. The Indigenous communities are facing a lot of prejudice and as children of God we cannot close our eyes! They are made in the image of God and do not deserve less than we do.

Details and photos from these and other projects are shown below.

Two people standing beside a lighted candle and a crown of thorns.

Faith

Our first Core Value is like an onion, having many aspects. As we peel the layers of our faith we start to become more aware of what is unpleasing to God. Each layer represents a new area of our lives that God is working on next. Our members as women of faith and action focused on emulating the experience of Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross. Commencing on Ash Wednesday 2023, for 40 days we meditated on an online Stations of the Cross: “40 Days At the Foot of the Cross” by My Catholic Life.

CWL members pose with the food collected for Indigenous youth

Service

The second Core Value - our Council worked together on March 4 & 5 on a “Food Drive for Indigenous Youth in the GTA”. We donated 30 bags of 292 pounds of foodstuffs to the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto and the “Yes Group”, in support of Indigenous youth and their families in the Greater Toronto Area.

Social Justice

The third Core Value - our Council participated in a Social Justice Signature Campaign to raise awareness for the need for clean drinking water in Indigenous communities, and the lack of action after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Operation Christmas Child

In October and November 2023, our members and fellow parishioners sent 59 shoeboxes filled with gifts to “Operation Christmas Child“ a project of Samaritan’s Purse that delivers gift-filled “shoeboxes" to children in need around the world.

Rosalie Hall

From Christmas Eve until the first week of Jan. 2024 we placed a playpen donated by two CWL members in the foyer of our church, to support our annual Rosalie Hall project. This project meets the needs of babies and young families in Scarborough and across the GTA. Our members, parishioners and well wishers donated 14 bags of baby necessities, 15 boxes of Huggies & Pampers, 2 large boxes of toys, and 3 floor play toys together with a $200 cash donation. All these were delivered to Rosalie Hall on January 10, 2024.