La Purisima Catholic Church

CRS Rice Bowl- "For Lent For Life"

Vivian Nguyen

Contact Information: 11712 N. Hewes St Orange, CA. 92869

Parish: (714) 633-5800 Office: (714) 771-7864

Section II. Table of Contents

1. Title Page

2.Table of Contents

3.Executive Summary

4.Non-Profit Description and Vision

5.Challenges of Non-Profit

6.Plan of Action

7.Financial Considerations

8.Appendix/Additional Resource

Section III. Executive Summary

In order to provide the best possible care for the church community and for the less fortunate

people, we believe we should take our time every Thursdays and Saturdays to volunteer at La

Purisima Catholic Church. The non-profit organization is called "For Lent For Life." It's in

charged by Catholic Relief Services. Cardboard Operation Rice Bowl will be distributed to all

students during your religion classes on March 5. This is an "at home" missionary drive that will

take place during Lent, March 5-April 11. Please click on the title of this post for more

information. Please consider asking your family to plan a simple meal at least once a week

during the 6 weeks of Lent. Take the money you save from your simple meal and place it in your

rice bowl. Bring your rice bowl donations to school by Friday, April 11. All donations benefit

local and global efforts of Catholic Relief Services.Your generosity is greatly appreciated.They

are dedicated in helping others with Jesus as their inspiration. During lent, people give up

something for Lent season such as no meat for forty days or anything they believe holds value in

their lives. The rice bowls is a great project in order to ask for a small donations from our church.

The purpose of this non-profit organization is to donate extra change to those in need. The

donations goes towards helping CRS' relief programs and also help feed families in less fortunate

countries. But furthermore, we did not want the main focus to only to be towards the rice bowls,

we also wanted to come into each grade level from first grade to eighth grade and give specific

topics about Lent. We planned activities of the Saturdays we volunteered and made sure when

we walked out the classroom door, each child will learn one particular moment.

Section IV: Non- Profit Description and Vision

Mission Statement: Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS is motivated by the example of Jesus Christ is assist poor and suffering people in 91 countries on the basis of need, without regard to race, religion or nationality.

La Purisima's History: La Purisima Vietnamese Bilingual R.E. Faith Formation is a Catholic Religious Education Ministry in the parish. With Jesus as our model and inspiration, we share in the Church's ministry of the religious education of children and youth.

The Religious Education Program provides a loving and compassionate atmosphere where our

students can learn and love the message of Jesus. Through our efforts, our students deepen their Catholic Christian identity and faith through religious instruction, formation in conscience, prayer, worship, and an understanding of and involvement in areas of Christian service.

Section V: Challenges for Non- Profit

In the beginning, we felt like this project was going to be too easy because the only goal we had to focus on, was the "Rice Bowl" project during Lent Season. But after discussing that we needed a real task to perform, Sr. Maitrinh told us that the project, we were committing to, is only, just the beginning. It took a few days to come up with the reason why La Purisima called for our services. Since the Bilingual R. E Faith Formation has been a Catholic Religious Education Ministry in the parish for many years now, we believe it has lost its true meaning in providing a proper education for the students in the Orange Community to learn. No student wants to spend two hours hearing a teacher lecture, or reading word for word in a book. They need teens like us to come to class, give them life lessons, activities to work on, and prizes. We felt like the only way for the children to be true Catholics was to convince that Church was interesting. The history behind it would lead into better imagination rather than the same story their parents taught them.

Section VI: Detailed Plan of Action to Help Non- Profit

Our goal is to improve the non- profit organization in the Vietnamese Bilingual Religious Education in La Purisima Catholic Church. By becoming the first two volunteers to commit service in this organization would open eyes to the Catholic Community, that there are people willing to devote their time every Saturday and work in the community. As a matter of fact, there is already a small group that has joined our movement to make the organization noticeable, fun, and active. We have provided a new way for students in the community to become active in learning. The first action we plan to do is raise money to donate for Lent for Life. The donation will help support other CRS programs around the world.

Section VII: Financial Considerations

Since this is a "non- profit organization," we could not ask the church to lend or give money to our project. Which meant the only problem we came across was getting the students to contribute into the project. Even though we were not suppose to make the "Rice bowls" mandatory, we promised that the winning grade would get a reward in the end. We believed if the students realized they will be rewarded for their good deed, that it would motivated many of them to participate in the rice bowls. But the problem was not all the students in each grade level wanted to contribute and there were students who contributed more than what we expected from them. Since it was nice to see some students collect pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollar bills or donate the amount they had to their rice bowls.

Section VII: Appendix and Additional Resources