St. Mary's Block Party 2018

Our church, Saint Mary of the Mills, held a block party in early June. The main reason for the party was to raise money for Saint Joseph Church, a sister parish in Carcasse, Haiti. The church and the town are still recovering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Matthew in 2007.

Our church has been working with Health and Education for Haiti, Global Solace, Inc., and Just Haiti Coffee to raise money and provide support for the Carcasse community. Conditions are improving but they have a long way to go.

The original plan for the block party was to celebrate in the parking lot of the church hall but that particular Saturday was rainy. So the festivities moved inside.

Inside the church hall

Display on Haiti

The Knights of Columbus were still outside grilling under pop-up canopies. They had plenty of burgers and hot dogs, which were the first course of our meal that night.

Not a good angle for the hot dog

Inside were table of foods from the various communities that make up St. Mary's, including Filipino, Caribbean, African-American, Italian, etc. In order not to offend anyone, I took a little bit of each.

Second course

The Knights also had a bar set up with beer and wine. The beer option included three beers brewed by parishioners. I sampled the Belgian brown ale and the Marzen. Both were delicious (that's the brown ale up in the picture).

Our kids liked the food but became obsessed with the corn hole game. They spent most of their time playing with other kids, making up their own teams. And their own rules. Happily, they are old enough to police themselves and were having a lot of fun. And we parents could relax and enjoy our meal.

Our children--on different teams!

Going for a high shot

It was a fun evening. We almost bought raffle tickets until we realized we weren't staying the whole evening (the party was supposed to go till 10 p.m.). We put our money in the donation jar instead.

Statue near the parish center