Within the boundaries of St. Benedict Parish in Georgetown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a preschool and hospital.  St. Benedict's Day Nursery  was established in 1963 by the late Fr. Roland Roberts of the Scarborough Fathers in Canada. Georgetown was Father Roberts' first appointment as a parish priest and he was dismayed to find that he was conducting from two to four infant funerals each week. Their deaths were mainly due to malnutrition and accompanying complications. This was the deciding factor in opening St. Benedict's. Although Fr. Roberts died in 1994 at the age of 88, his dream has come to fruition. Under the loving guidance of Sister Nyra, a member of the Carmelite Order, St. Benedict's daily cared for 120 children each week from age three months to four and a half years (up to 90 per day). About twenty of them live full-time in the adjoining Infant Hospital. This is a twelve bed ward for malnourished children and battered and abandoned infants. St. Vincent and the Grenadines has no orphanage so the Hospital and Day Nursery must act as one. The Hospital had 22 beds and the staff often cared for more than twenty infants at a time. The original cribs are waist-high with a shelf a foot or so above the floor. At night, this serves as a bed for many of the children. The Hospital also functions as an Out-Patient clinic. It is free of charge and cares for both children and adults. Neither the Day Nursery nor the Infant Hospital receives any government funding; both are financed by the personal contributions of interested individuals.

Because, due in part to the violent actions of hurricanes and tropical storms, some of the buildings had to be abandoned.  This forced the reduction in children allowed to be educated on the premises.  Those students without homes who lived on the site permanently moved to where the school lessons were conducted. 

Fortunately, due to the generosity of many people, land was purchased and plans have been made to build a new school and hospital.  Only through the generosity of many people will this be able to happen.  Please consider donations for this project. Envelopes are available in the back of the church.

In reflecting on the success of the city-wide Health Care Forum held in our parish hall on Wednesday evening, I couldn’t help but compare my feelings to those of the 72 disciples, Jesus sent off in twos to minister to strangers. They stepped out in faith, with a certain amount of trepidation, but returned rejoicing. My emotions followed a similar rollercoaster path, with the addition of wonderment (had we done enough to get the people to come out midweek?), the uncertainty of scheduling our speakers (like herding cats!) and the growing sense of awe once God delivered ‘the fruit of so much labor’ (weeks and weeks!) and the community began to flood our hall. This was quickly replaced with even more anxiety as last minute changes and our unflagging desire to provide our audience with the best information and evening we could muster for being non-professional event coordinators. But we were remarkably successful! In an event scheduled mid-week to accommodate a speaker who, as it turned out, would not attend; on a day when the humidity suddenly shot up in the late afternoon; and, for sports junkies, on a day when Bobby Bonds was closing in on Hank Aaron’s homerun record, we managed to draw over 135 people willing to ‘educate, advocate and participate in the democratic process’ and share their own testimony regarding health care. We hope our Forum was also beneficial for our guests, including Herb Schultz, senior policy advisor for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Steven Larson, CEO and Chairman of Riverside Medical Clinic, Jeff Greene, chief of staff for Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, and Lucien Wulson, Jr., health policy expert with Insure the Uninsured Project (ITUP), who led the audience through a discussion of the major components of the six or so proposals facing our elected leaders. Thank you(s) are in order to all who participated in making our Forum a success, especially our Parish Health Ministry, who co-hosted the evening. As people of faith, we each need to act with justice, speaking out for those who are voiceless and marginalized so that ‘peoples’ lives are filled with hope’. If you are interested in living your faith in such a personal and authentic way, I invite you to ‘step out in faith’. St. Catherine Ministry of Social Concerns and Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC) are partnered to advocate and bring about social change. Our Evangelization Ministry, Catholic Mission Outreach (CMO) the St. Vincent De Paul Society and others reach out to minister to the needs of our greater community. You can contact them by calling their number listed in the Parish Bulletin. May God truly bless all our work!

- Deacon John