Sacred Heart Catholic Community Declare 2009 the Year of Housing
Last summer the people of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Camden, Mississippi, lost one of its beloved members. Andrew Palmer was a kind and distinguished elderly gentleman who came devotedly to church every Sunday. His preventable death due to heat stroke has inspired everyone to rally together to improve the living conditions of the poor, and especially the elderly of the community.
Pictured below: Fr. Mike Barth, S.T., greeting Andrew Palmer after Sunday Mass.
Mr. Palmer's preventable death last summer inspired a community to act.
 Andrew was very poor, living solely on a small Social Security stipend, and it was a constant struggle for him to survive. Like many of Sacred Heart’s senior citizens, Andrew lived in a mobile home. Fr. Mike Barth, S.T., delivered his lunch to him everyday and it broke his heart to see the terrible conditions in which he lived. His mobile home was ancient, disheveled, in need of many repairs and was without electricity – the wiring had failed several years before. He had no lights, no air conditioning.
Mobile homes are a way of life for many in the community. Set on land that has been in a family for generations, they are an inexpensive way for senior citizens to live when they survive on small pensions and Social Security that sometimes total only $10,000 to $15,000 a year
 The pictures you see are real homes, if they can be called that, where the elderly live. Many mobile homes are 30 to 40 years old and they deteriorate rapidly but the elderly don’t have the money to maintain them. Some, like Andrew’s, have no electricity.
Others have no windows, the steps have long rotted away, the doors are broken, floors fail and the roofs leak. Fr. Mike and the rest of the Sacred Heart community try in as many ways as they can to help destitute elderly by delivering food, helping with transportation, advocating for their benefits and making the Family Center open to them during the hot summer days to enjoy companionship and a decent meal.
But there is so much more they could do with your help!
This year…2009…The Year of Housing…Sacred Heart is committed to making a difference through the Senior Citizen Mobile Home Repair Program. Through this program the following will be accomplished --
- Conduct a needs assessment of a maximum of 20 mobile homes through the services of a qualified, licensed contractor.
- Select 10 mobile homes through a lottery.
- Purchase building materials.
- Recruit volunteer groups from the community to contribute a total of 10 weekends, one weekend per mobile home, for home repair.
- Secure the services of a licensed electrician to wire or rewire mobile homes as needed.
Please give today! This is just one example of how your gift could mean the difference between life and death to the elderly Trinity Missions serves every day.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
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