Charles Town church’s Dynamic Do-Nut Delivery to get groceries to area residents
As COVID-19 took the state by storm, St. James the Greater Roman Catholic Church of Charles Town prepared itself to help the less fortunate. What began as grocery and handmade mask deliveries has grown to include a fun twist on lending a helping hand—one holding Krumpe’s Do-Nuts and Joan & Joe Coffee.
Under the name of the church’s outreach program, a coalition of church youth began making masks and delivering groceries to those considered to be more susceptible to the virus.
Grace Guiney, a Loudon County school teacher and the coordinator for the St. Roch Outreach, explained what prompted the creation of the program.
“St. Roch is the patron saint of infectious diseases,” Guiney said. “We started the ministry under the direction of our deacon, Deacon Dave Galvin, right when the pandemic started. The Thursday before schools closed, he was ready to go with the plan of having a grocery delivery for older people or people at risk.”
With an abundance of food donations from local businesses, the St. Roch Outreach provided more than $100 worth of food to each of the 260 families it has served since the outreach began.
“In addition to delivering to older people who can’t go out, we’re also delivering groceries to low-income families or families affected by job loss with the virus every other week,” Guiney said.
Guiney found that when delivering the groceries, many individuals would leave small donations. She then formulated the idea to create a specific fund for all donations received.
The youth of St. Roch Outreach decided to dedicate their donations to memorialize a mosaic of Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young Italian activist and humanitarian whose work quietly helped hundreds of the poor and sick individuals during his short life.
“The memorialized mosaics are put up one at a time as the money is raised, and they really make the church beautiful,” Guiney said. “Usually a person, family or organization will have a saint in mind who means something to them, and we were inspired by the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.”
To kick-start this funding, St. Roch Outreach partnered with the iconic Hagerstown staple, Krumpe’s Do-Nuts, and local coffee shop Joan & Joe Coffee.
Dynamic Do-Nuts Delivery, an all-in-one, pick-me-up delivery service, will offer four types of donuts, costing $10 per dozen, and a 96-ounce cold brew coffee, costing $20. By Wednesday of each week, interested individuals can place their orders to receive them on Friday at the St. James’ parking lot or for Jefferson County residents, right to their door.
The first order is set to be delivered today.
“This week, delivery is just in Jefferson County, but the deacon has high hopes that we’ll also be able to deliver to Martinsburg if we can get enough volunteer drivers,” Guiney said.
Guiney assured that Dynamic Do-Nuts Delivery will still maintain all necessary health and well-being precautions during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We don’t want people in our area to think that St. James or the youth of our parish are ignoring the pandemic, or that we’re just doing this really fun thing while all this is going on,” Guiney said. “It’s more like we’re adding on to what we’re already doing. We’re bringing joy into the crisis, but we’re also working really hard to help the people who are in need now.”
According to Guiney, many of the church’s community projects and partnerships have been led by Galvin.
“We are very inspired by our deacon,” Guiney said. “He has been leading us in all types of great activities like this since we were really young. There have been other people who have joined in at various stages of their youth, and the list of programs like this that he’s usually in charge of is endless.”
Because of the wide variety St. James’ offers the community, Guiney encourages the public to support the outreach in any way possible.
“We would love for people to donate to our mosaic, but we’d also really love for people to donate to our St. Roch Outreach,” Guiney said. “The money from that is going to so many different programs.”
Donation and volunteer opportunities, as well as grocery and mask delivery requests can be found at sites.google.com/view/saintroch.
Online ordering information for the Dynamic Do-Nuts Delivery can be found at sites.google.com/prod/view/DynamicDonuts.
Article courtesy of The Journal Times, written by Mikayla Hamrick; photo submitted
