St. Joseph's Community Honors School's Namesake on Worker Day

For more than two decades, St. Joseph's Catholic School has set aside one day each year to do charitable work in the community in honor of St. Joseph the Worker, which is celebrated on May 1.

This year, on Friday, May 3, students, faculty, staff and numerous volunteers were on campus and all over the community doing their part to make an impact.

On campus, more than 150 individuals were in the cafeteria participating in a packathon for the benefit of the poor and hungry in the Milot region of Northern Haiti. 

Nearly half of Haiti needs immediate assistance, and fewer than 50 percent of households have clean water and access to nutritional meals. With that in mind and with energy and enthusiasm filling the cafeteria, the Knights family packed 50,000 bags over the course of about three hours.

HAITI PACKATHON PHOTO GALLERY

Off campus that day, the SJCS community helped in a variety of ways at numerous sites.

Mr. Chapman's Gallowglass Household volunteered at Harvest Hope, assembling food boxes to be distributed to food insecure seniors in the area. Harvest Hope distributes about 4,000 boxes a month, and the boys packaged over 800 of those boxes that day.

"The staff at Harvest Hope was quite impressed with our efficiency," said Gallowglass Household Parent Christine Balts, "saying that we were so good that they had planned for the SJCS middle school girls who joined us to work on the same assembly line, but our young men were so effective that they quickly made a separate, new line for the girls to work instead.

"My favorite moment not just from (that day), but from all of the SJCS St. Joseph the Worker Days that I have been privileged to participate in, came when wrapping up and cleaning our workspace. Harvest Hope had the radio in our area set to K-LOVE and to hear several of our boys singing along to CeCe Winans’ 'Goodness of God' will stick with me forever."

The SJCS community also helped at the following sites:

Bel-Aire
Birthright
Build-a-Bear at Shriner's Hospital
Front Porch Housing
Greenville Center for Creative Arts
Greenville County Animal Care
Greenville County Parks and Recreation
Greenville's Gift
HomeWorks
Humane Society
Parker Head Start Center
Post-Acute Care Nursing Home
Primrose Academy
Project Host
Reedy River Cleanup
Ronald McDonald House
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church
St. Clare's Home
St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Preschool
Washington Center

SJWD PHOTO GALLERY I

SJWD PHOTO GALLERY II