http://www.saintjames-nb.org

Blood donations needed

All of these various meetings came from firstly speaking to the people of the cities of New Bedford and Fall River about what they thought were the reasons for the violence. House meetings, parish meetings and one on one meetings gave the same ideas. Jobs, the drop out rate in our high schools; and the need for community policing were the reasons that people gave as contributing to the present violence.

Having received the input of the people, UIA began to study the issues and meet with people about them.

Now we have come to the time of our ACTION on November 17 at Mt. Carmel School Auditorium. This is the time when we invite certain city officials to our meeting to see what they will be doing about these particular issues.

We ask them what they have done since our last ACTION on these same issues.

We need many people to come to the meeting to show our support for these concerns.

No one has to speak. No one has to do anything.

Just being there in great numbers speaks volumes to the invited officials.

Our goal is to have thirty people from St. James attend the Action. Help us to meet this goal!

Please join us the weekend of November 29/30 to hear Fr. Gus Gorden speak at all the liturgies about the ministry providing direct relief to the poor throughout Latin America

and the Caribbean.

Fr. Gorden was ordained in 1969 and belongs to the Archdiocese of Castries in St. Lucia

He worked with a hands on ministry in Alabama and has preached on behalf of Food for the Poor for 17 years.

This collection has been the opportunity for parishioners to give a little or substantially extra for the payment of expenses for the parish.

The Parish Financial Council has studied the annual financial reports for many years. In the last ten years there has been certain trends that have appeared.

One of the trends is that we always end the fiscal year in the red by $40,000. The Financial Council wishes to repeat that we need $3,000 in the first collection each week to meet our expenses.

The second trend is that we have certain other sources of revenue that have allowed us to end this fiscal year in the black. We have received certain bequests that have helped us cover our expenses. As anyone knows who has to take care of house expenses, a budget cannot be made upon unexpected sources of income. What happens if the money doesn’t come from that source?

The third way that we have made it in the black is the Annual Collection. The Annual Collection went down significantly last year. Part of that may be that our enrollment in the parish has been steadily decreasing.

Thank you for your generosity.

Parish Festival Meeting

Monday, October 20 at 6:30 p.m.

in the rectory.

Articles for the White Elephant table and new gifts may be left at the rectory. Please mark them W.E. or NEW. No shoes or books. Please remember that we cannot accept anything used that requires electricity. Monetary donations are always accepted as this helps to purchase new items for the gifts table. Our gift baskets raffle is very popular. New items such as kitchen, baby, bath garden,

Christmas, etc. may be left in the gathering area or at the rectory. Please mark as basket table. For more information call Ann Przystarz 508-999-2285.

Bishop George Coleman will celebrate a special Mass of Thanksgiving for couples observing 25^th and 50^th wedding anniversaries during 2003. The celebration will take place on Sunday, December 7 at 3 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fall River. If you would like an invitation, please let Fr. Ed know as soon as possible.