Charity Organisation at Holy Name

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Holy Name is a generous parish. There are many demands from the diocese and various charitable organisations which up to now have always fallen to Fr Michael to manage. To relieve him of this pressure we have created a Charity Committee to deal with requests both from inside and outside our community.

There are obligatory donations required by the diocese. These include the following.

  1. The Holy Places. To provide support and care for the Christians and sacred buildings in the Holy Land.
  2. NBF- The priests’ retirement and sickness fund
  3. Little Sisters of the Poor appeal. St Joseph’s Nursing and residential care for the elderly.
  4. Lay training fund
  5. Peter’s pence- support for the Holy See charities.
  6. Clergy training fund
  7. Catholic Youth Trust in Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle
  8. Lenten and Advent Alms-St Cuthbert’s Care
  9. Stella Maris- Apostleship of the sea.
  10. Family Fast days -CAFOD
  11. Mission Sunday

We also have several charities with which the Holy Name community is particularly involved. These include the following.

  1. The Bostey – This is an organisation in a sister parish, St Anthony of Padua which supports the youth of a disadvantaged area in Walker. The Bostey first came to our attention in 2019 when parish partnerships were created and has benefitted since then from regular donations from many members of Holy Name. 
  2. Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle Justice and Peace Refugee Project.

 Several members of Holy Name are involved in managing and running this service which provides food and support for the increasing number of Asylum seekers coming to this area. They are not allowed to work and are potentially destitute. There is a regular collection of food and necessities from The Holy Name, but the needs are increasing.

  • CAFOD The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development is a well-known, international, and ethically run organisation; it is an excellent channel for donations for third world needs and disaster funding. Karen Kilby, trustee of CAFOD, spoke to us at Holy Name describing the work of the organisation and many of our parishioners are donors.
  • The Christmas Mass collections are donated to a selected charity, the choice of which varies from year to year. If you have any opinion on this choice, please let us know.  

The work of these organisations encompasses local need, welcome to refugees and our obligations to the disadvantaged and impoverished abroad. It is envisaged that our commitment to these charities may be reviewed, increased, or replaced in the future and that members of Holy Name may wish to have their views and opinions aired and discussed. Our aim as a Charities Committee would be to organise not impose.

From time-to-time individual members of the parish wish to promote their own specific charities. An excellent example of this is the Kabuyanda project which continues to raise money with well attended events. Any requests of this kind will be run past the committee; entry into the newsletter and use of the Hall will be facilitated if possible.

There are frequent requests from diverse charities made to the Holy Name. We aim to handle these requests and respond appropriately. We hope this will reduce the workload on Fr Michael. In general, we would prefer to reduce random requests from outside the community and undertake to promote those from within.

If anyone has any advice, opinions or ideas concerning the charity related activities at Holy Name please contact a committee member. We would appreciate your input.

John Waddell, John Gilroy, Jeremy Wynne, Clare Robson