BLESSINGS OF WATER

In a great many parts of the world and the United States, the lack of clean drinking water can have devastating impacts. 

According to the World Health Organization, two million people die every year due to the effects of using unsafe water for drinking, hygiene and sanitation. St. Thomas the Apostle Church and School in Delmar - through a collective effort - is doing its part to fight that problem. 

The Care for Creation team, the faith formation/youth ministry programs and the students at St. Thomas the Apostle School, led by their art teacher, Denise Chonski, have raised $1,266 (and counting) through the “Many Blessings of Water” Art show held recently at the parish.
Paintings, drawings and handmade clay jugs and glass vases, all made by the students, were on display, with the money from the donations going to the global non-profit Water with Blessings, which provides clean water to millions across the globe. The money will be used to buy 16 Sawyer Point One Water filters, which cost $75 each, and will provide a lifetime of clean water for members of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

Chonski said that the school, faith-formation students and the Care for Creation team have been working together in recent years, “but this year with everything that we have been through and the stresses and the pandemic and coming out of that, we wanted to do more. We wanted to actually make a difference and make it more meaningful not only for the students but for the adults of the parish and the morale of the school.”

After a Zoom meeting between the three groups, a plan was in place. 

The youth ministry/faith formation program, led by Mary Ann Hospodar, painted glass jars and helped finish up some of the glazing on the pottery that the students at the school created. 

The students at the school created water-related art projects, using Scripture as their guide, Chonski said. From the baptism to the parting of the Red Sea to the power and restorative aspects of water, Chonski said “we just researched everything we could find.” Even the kindergartners pitched in with wave paintings. And the Care for Creation team hosted the event.

“I am going to call it not a coincidence, but a “God-incidence” in that fact that at that same time (of the art show), we had a baptism occur in the church,” Chonski said. “It was all these different connections that we saw coming together. It just made the idea of being able to do something with the parish, the school, the faith formation, with the wider community and then with society in general, which goes along with our school’s vision of “Faith, Community and Service.”