By early 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic at its strongest ran its course, and everything slowly returned to normal. Father Giovanni Rodriguez, then in his second year as pastor of St. Clement Pope and Martyr Parish in Rockaway Township, told Mary Beth Ramsey, then in her early days of being religious education director, that he wanted the parish’s children to have a greater sense of community.
Ramsey agreed, but she wanted it to transcend book study. It had to include communication and an activity.
“We need to do things together. I want them to talk to each other. I want them to speak; they need to know their names and who they are. It started with that,” Ramsey said. With Catholicism, it’s about helping others. “We’re supposed to be doing things like this, so it is built into the curriculum.”
Once a month, Ramsey, with her 230 students from first to eighth grade, runs three sessions of the same activity for all Sunday and Monday classes. They include a brief lesson at the start about a saint she thinks embodies the activity.
For one activity, children sorted their used crayons. Then, they donated them to a company that melts them and makes them into new crayons for children in hospitals. Ramsey spoke to students about St. Kateri Tekakwitha, patroness of environment and ecology, focusing on recycling. When the students did Blessings Bags for the homeless, she educated them about St. Mother Teresa.
According to Ramsey, the students love the activities; parents’ feedback has been important.
Ramsey said of the parents, “When their kids are absent, they will say, ‘Oh, I am missing an activity.’ They look forward to it, and it has taken off.”
For a recent activity, classes held a clothing drive to raise money to hire a school bus that took students in confirmation prep to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey in Hillside. There, they worked two and a half hours, packed 350 boxes of food, and learned about food insecurity in the Garden State.
“It is rewarding to bring the kids together, know they are building their community, and remind them of all the love they are showing. Jesus taught us to give back; that is what we are doing. I love seeing that the kids love doing that. That itself is very rewarding,” Ramsey said.
Father Rodriguez added, “We want this to be an experience for them. We want kids in the future to remember that when they went to St. Clement Parish for religious education or any program, they did not go on because they had to do it but because they wanted to be there to be a difference and be the best version of themselves.”