Women’s Guild
2024-2025 Officers
Co-Presidents – Laura Courter (soakupthesun@hotmail.com) and Martha Bartlett (msbartlett78@hotmail.com)
Secretary –Ruth Kelly (danruthmacomb@gmail.com)
Treasurer – Donella Anderson (gumby@macomb.com)
Mission Statement
Building community among all women of our Parish through spiritual, social and charitable activities.
Parish Related Activities
Plan and host spiritual activities such as prayer partners, retreats and special speakers.
Conduct community service projects such as the Mardi Gras food drive, Giving Tree and the Prison Mission project.
Provide food for and host funeral dinners.
Host special event receptions such as First Communion, Confirmation and Easter Vigil as well as other Parish special occasions.
Manage fundraising and community service activities including Parish rummage sales each year and Cookie Walk.
Visit our Facebook page here.
ST. PAUL WOMEN’S GUILD
“Building community among all women of our Parish through spiritual, social and charitable activities.”
May 2023 Women’s Guild Newsletter
Dear Guild Members,
This is the first of what I hope will be our regular monthly newsletter with information regarding all things to do with the Women’s Guild. Do let me know if you have ideas on how to make it better or perhaps you want to see other things included like prayer requests. I would be happy to hear your feedback and make this more relevant to the women of our parish. Also, please note a NEW EVENT towards the bottom of this email under the month of May.
First off, I wanted to do a little overview of the month of April. We had a funeral dinner for Jean Waymack’s family which was very well-attended. Numerous family members thanked the Guild women for serving them in this special way. Thank you to all who donated food and volunteered to help with set-up, food prep, serving, and tear-down. This is a beautiful ministry that takes a lot of work but is always well worth our while.
The Guild also put together the reception following Easter Vigil, and it was a happy celebration for all who attended. Thank you to those of you who helped with that!
The Care of Creation committee members hosted the 4-week study of Laudato Si at Newman Center. And Newman also hosted a Women’s Retreat day that many of our ladies attended, which was great!
We had a decent sized group who went to the volunteer appreciation luncheon at the Cathedral in Peoria with Bishop Lou last week. Mary Aurelio was our honoree and we want to congratulate her again on her years of serving our parish in many different ways.
All throughout April we had an excellent prayer partner exchange with the kids in First Holy Communion classes and Guild members. Thank you to Sally Adams for taking over this year and for doing a great job facilitating!
If I forgot to mention some things I apologize! I am hoping to get better at keeping track of everything in the future, but our Guild really does so much that it’s been a lot to keep tabs on!
May:
The Guild is doing a bag-to-go reception for the First Communion kids which is already this coming Sunday! Please keep all of the kids who are receiving FHC in your prayers.
Sunday, May 21st from 2-4pm at Newman Center we will be introducing a new event that I am really excited about. This is going to be a Baby Shower for Mary, as in our Holy Mother who we honor most specially in this month of May. To honor the Blessed Mother in a unique way, Theresa Young and Elizabeth Snyder are putting together a real baby shower with sweet party favors, fun games, and even presents which we will be donating to our local Birthright. This will be a wonderful opportunity to enjoy some good food, great fellowship, and to learn a little bit more about what Birthright does for pregnant women and mothers in our community. Please come, even if you don’t have a gift to give, and enjoy an afternoon with other ladies of the Guild. Also, this is an event for women and girls of all ages. So bring your daughters and granddaughters! Here’s a link to the Amazon registry with baby items you can purchase to bring along for a donation. https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/birthright-macomb-may-2023-macomb/HGJOFC5JC3O2?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_GXPMF0NHD78X5F26PNKV
I also want to mention the Rummage Sale again as we get so much closer to the dates for that! As many of you know, this is a BIG event that benefits of lot of people in the community as well as parishioners wanting to get rid of excess stuff. But we cannot stress enough that we need volunteers for sorting items as well as cashiers for the sale days. We are making some changes to how we do things this year to hopefully make things more efficient and a little easier on everyone, but we also simply need plenty of good help or we plan to simply cancel this sale. Please sign up or respond to this email if you are willing to help on any of the sorting days (May 29-June 1), or if you would volunteer to cashier on either June 2nd or 3rd. Anyone can help, this is not just open to Guild members! So invite your husbands or sons or grandsons to help too!
This essentially concludes our May Newsletter for the Guild. I want to turn to a personal matter for a moment because I’m so grateful to Jean and everyone in St Paul Parish who have been so gracious to me and my family recently.
I wanted to personally thank all of you who donated to and prayed for my parents after their house fire. I was humbled that Jean informed many from our parish of this tragedy (my parents are not Catholic but attend Argyle Bible Church in Colchester) and that many of you were graciously giving them so much love. Last week was a really hard one for my whole family as my 4 siblings and I spent many wonderful years in that house and now it is a very sad sight to see. My parents were not home at the time the fire started, so they were safe and no one was injured. The house was a total loss and my parents have been displaced until tomorrow when they will get their rental furniture and be able to move into a rental house in Macomb. God has worked out so many details of this whole situation which has been so amazing to see unfold. My parents were obviously shocked and overwhelmed by losing their home and all of their belongings, but they were more amazed and humbled by the incredible outpouring of love coming from friends and family and strangers alike. Our community rallied around them in a huge way and your love and prayers have kept them feeling more grounded as they work through what feels like the impossible. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for loving my parents and for continuing to pray for them as they move forward with whatever lies ahead.
Thank you for all of your encouragement as we make changes and forge ahead in new ways with Guild events and fundraisers. Jean and I hope the work the Guild does is making a positive difference in your lives and will continue to do so. Let me know if you have questions, comments, or concerns and I’ll be glad to listen.
Blessings to you all!
Laura Courter
The Annual Peoria Diocesan Council of Catholic Women Volunteers – Past St. Paul Women’s Guild members who have been recognized include:
2015 Loretta Baucom
2016 Cecelia Majeres and Jan Theis
2017 Kathleen Markey and Jean Waymack
2018 Rita Richbark, Pat Arnold and Cathy Crain
2019 Shirley Adams and Judy Yeast
2020 Program not available
2021 Dana Derry and Cynthia Sullivan
2022 Sharon Hoffbeck
2023 Mary Aurelio
2024 Sara Druffel and Sally Adams