WORD UP! Church Folks Gone World!

The Christmas holiday season is most notable for any number of reasons to celebrate, but among all those are celebrations that involve tradition. Over its 115 years of existence many traditions have started and continued on at St. Agatha’s Catholic Church, located on 3151 W. Douglas Boulevard. No tradition has been more consistent than its annual Christmas Gift Basket give away. This past Sunday, on the coldest day in Chicago this year, several hundred parish members gathered at St. Agatha’s as a host of volunteers assisted Pastor Fr. Larry Dowling and volunteer coordinator Ira Givens in passing out more than 300 bags of donated gifts for the Christmas holiday.

According to Fr. Dowling, the tradition of giving out Christmas gift baskets began at St. Agatha’s more than 16 years ago. “I’ve been with St. Agatha’s only a short time,” said Fr. Dowling, “so I’ve experienced just a couple of these events, but the food and Christmas gift baskets giveaways have been going on here every year for the last 16 years.” Within that time it’s safe to say that close to 10,000 gift baskets have been passed out by St. Agatha volunteers. Almost two weeks ago, St. Agatha’s passed out over 300 gift baskets to community members and their families. Recipients of last Sunday’s gift baskets included parish members and school families. Fr. Dowling says this year’s recipients of the Christmas gift baskets first submitted their names, along with their gift “wish list” to the volunteer committee back in October. Once the requests were received they were then passed on to seven suburban Catholic churches, all of whom gathered donations to complete the St. Agatha Christmas gift baskets. For more information on St. Agatha volunteer opportunities, you may contact the parish at (773) 762-1809.