You’ve followed the news about the flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Now you are wondering, is there anything I can do to help besides changing my Facebook profile picture? There certainly is. Here are some ideas.

Donate through the Diocese

The Diocese of Charlotte is taking up a special second collection at all parishes this weekend and next to support the victims of this natural disaster. You can read more about that here.

Donate through Catholic Charities

Catholic Charities USA is a national Catholic charitable relief organization, and they are already responding to the needs of those in Texas with professional, effective, and compassionate relief services. You can donate to them through their web site.

Go!

You could hook your boat up to your truck and drive down there yourself to lend a hand, like members of the WCU Bass Fishing Club did!

Make Rosaries!

So most college students don’t have the means to donate a lot of money or drive down to TX to help in person. But there are still other ways to help. We’ve learned that the Catholic Student Center at Rice University in Texas is collecting donations of rosaries. They will give these to area priests who are working tirelessly to provide spiritual comfort to those affected by the flooding. The priests will distribute the rosaries to those they are ministering to.

We’d like to support our fellow Catholic students in this effort. We have supplies here at CCM to make tied knot rosaries. I know many of you know how to make these already. For those who don’t, there are instructions, and I’m sure other students will be glad to show you. We will have supplies set out on the coffee table in the CCM living room for the next several days.

At the end of next week, I’d like to send whatever rosaries we have collected to the Rice University Catholic Student Center for their collection. A rosary you make can bring comfort to someone who needs to be reminded of God’s compassion more than ever.

If you have other rosaries you are not using that you’d like to donate, please bring them by CCM and leave them in the basket on the coffee table.

Pray!

The secular world may tell us that our “thoughts and prayers” are not effective to help those in need, but we know otherwise. God hears our prayers, especially our prayers offered for others. We may never know how the graces obtained through our prayers — especially when those prayers are accompanied by fasting and other sacrifices — may bring comfort to those most in need. Don’t stop praying!