Haiti Twinning History

In January of 1992, the bulletin carried a notice for an upcoming diocesan Office of Youth Ministry Haitian Third World Experience. This trip would be for the following summer, two separate instances of twelve days in July when youth would have the opportunity to visit an orphanage, a nursing home and an all-girl school and provide hands on service in each of these locations along with learning the challenges and blessings of the work the Church was doing in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This notice in the bulletin received a response from around the Diocese of Worcester and several people from around the diocese traveled to Haiti for this Third World experience that began a personal connection between the Haitian people and the Diocese of Worcester.
Three years later, some of those who had made that first trip had organized into the Diocesan Coalition to travel around the diocese and invite others to become part of this exceptional ministry of mission. Without necessarily leaving our own homes, Catholics could ‘adopt’ a parish or ministry in the Diocese of Les Cayes, Haiti in a ‘twinning relationship.’ This initiative for this program was from Fr. Bill Konicki, a priest from Worcester who had served in Milford as a seminarian and deacon during his formation and had been assigned to Les Cayes by Bishop Reilly.  Representatives from the Diocesan Coalition met with members of the Parish Council on March 20, 1995, to share the progress of the ministry, discuss special spring projects and a six month status of their budget. On April 24^th, the Parish Council ‘agreed unanimously to have Saint Mary’s enter into a twinning covenant with Notre Dame du Rosaire in Port-a-Piment, Haiti.’ 
The bulletin of April 30, 1995, explained that “Notre Dame is a community 16,000 Catholics with five chapels besides the main Church. There are seven hundred eighty-seven children in eleven small parish schools.” An insert in the bulletin for June 18^th detailed that there were 22 teachers for the 787 students, who received a salary of $30 a month in the main school and $15 a month in the chapels. There are ten catechists at the main church and three at each of the five chapels, all of whom are volunteers and unpaid. The catechists expressed their need for ‘pens, paper, books, bibles, blackboards, food for sessions with children, songbooks, catechisms, notebooks and chalk.’ Three Sisters of Saint Anne work in the school and assist with pastoral work with the youth, liturgy and catechesis. Fr. Thomas, the pastor, had identified his vision to improve the catechesis with a focus on the families and youth. He also shared that the church needs repairs (paint, pews, and fans) along with a drinking fountain since many suffered from typhoid and he hoped to install bathroom facilities in the church also.

That spring the emerging Haitian Committee got to work raising funds for their twin in Port-a-Piment. For Fathers’ Day weekend in June of 1995, they organized a car wash and a mini-yard sale that raised $924.50. Deacon Peter Faford and his wife Linda came to the parish to speak at the Masses about the twinning effort in Haiti and to help the parish understand the commitment involved with this ministry. There were a couple of other fundraisers, a “Change Sunday” that netted $1,231 and a bottle and can drive that raised $116. With two other donations that totaled $300 there was just under $2,600 to cover the travel expenses of the four parishioners. The cost of the travel was $850 a person, and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul purchased large plastic bins at $20 each (2 for each of the four travelers) to transport supplies to Haiti and bring back Haitian artifacts to the States. Drawing and paper supplies were donated by Winter Haven Shelter, Milford Catholic Elementary School donated baseball caps and the parish travelers would bring sheets and towels for the guest house along with a photo album and hostess gift from the parish for the twin parish in Port-a-Piment. 
On July 24^th, Sr. Therese Lucier, Judy Byron and her daughter, Maura, then a high school junior, and Constance Barna flew from Boston to Port au Prince where they then traveled over the mountains of Hispaniola to Les Cayes, a city of about 100,000, and the last large city for the remaining hundred miles to the end of the island. From here they made the journey to the parish twin, the parish of Notre Dame du Rosaire in Port-a-Piment.  While there they visited with the parish leaders, learned first hand of their needs and how the parish could help them. In two quick weeks their time was done and they returned to Milford on Sunday, August 6, 1995. Their experience changed not only the travelers, but our parish and our understanding of Church and our role as missionaries even from our own home.
Nearly a year later, in June of 1996, the Parish Council voted to direct parish support to the diocesan Office of Youth Ministry in Les Cayes and not to Notre Dame du Rosair Parish in Port-a-Piment. On June 29^th and 30^th, the parish welcomed Fr. Michel Nerestant, the Director of Youth Ministry from Les Cayes to speak at the weekend Masses. He had traveled to the States to visit his sister in New York, and with the recent vote to support his ministry, he decided at the last minute to come to Milford to meet people from the parish to thank them for their support. He had a busy weekend in Milford, “he preached at all the English Masses … visited the thirty-two couples making a Pre-Cana retreat on Saturday, had a tour of our Milford community, spent an evening with the members of Saint Mary’s who will visit Haiti this summer, and shared pizza and insights with a group of young people from Milford.”
The following week, eight members of the parish would leave for Les Cayes on July 8, 1996. 

On Monday, July 8, 1996, eight members of the parish made a journey to Les Cayes, Haiti.  They were Kris Magnuson, Gui LaRoche. Maura Byron, Shane Schonhoff, Bob Nashawaty, Judy Byron, Beth Wolfe, and Marty Harris. Having just changed the twinning relationship of Saint Mary’s Parish from the Parish of Notre Dame in Port-a-Piment, to the diocesan Office for Youth Ministry in Les Cayes, the missionaries met up with Fr. Michel whom they had recently met in Milford while he was visiting.  He stopped at the parish to meet parishioners and to share the needs of his ministry in Les Cayes. While they were there, they made a visit to the parish’s former twin of Notre Dame du Rosaire in Port-a-Pimont. During their trip, parishioners were invited on Friday, July 12^th, for a prayer service in the parish center for the safety and success of their mission.  They returned from Haiti on Saturday, July 20^th, and would later hold a meeting to share the details of their experience and to invite the parish to support the twinning relationship by both its financial assistance and prayers.
Sometime in the 21^st century, the twinning relationship in Haiti for Saint Mary’s Parish was moved from the Office for Youth Ministry to Sacred Heart Parish in Les Cayes, which is currently the parish’s twinning relationship. In the early part of the 21^st century, the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish visited in Milford as part of a diocesan effort to promote the twinning relationships And that was followed by Deacon Dave Vaillancourt who in December of 2014 travelled to Les Cayes to visit the parish as well.
Having had a different twinning recipient at a previous parish, Fr. Peter Joyce in an effort to promote the relationship visited in January of 2019.  He was graciously hosted by Pere Alfred Bernard at Sacred Heart. Together they concelebrated the weekend Masses, and Fr. Peter toured the parish school where the children were gathered for an assembly to present gifts for the parish and to sing for Fr. Peter. Then, in the year following the global shut down of 2020, a terrible earthquake just outside of Les Cayes brought the beautiful church to ruins on August 15, 2021. The epicenter was just outside of Les Cayes and the parish buildings suffered major damage, one wall of the church collapsed, some of the roof and almost all of the recently completed wooden ceiling. Since then the parish raised over $100,000 to help build a parish center for Masses and fundraising efforts to help them rebuild their church in Les Cayes. Growing violence and instability throughout the country in the early 2020s make progress and rebuilding especially difficult.