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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Meet the lady behind the Santa Rosa Soup Kitchen Mary Marcano

by

The WE Mag team
1883 days ago
20191126

Mary Mar­cano is a wid­ow and a moth­er of five who is con­sid­ered to be a very re­source­ful and strong woman, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the face of to­day’s chang­ing world. As a woman with hands of com­pas­sion, deep faith and mer­cy, Mary (ap­pro­pri­ate­ly named) has been able to bring some light amidst the dark­ness for many im­pov­er­ished fam­i­lies.

The ‘San­ta Rosa Soup Kitchen’ and the ‘Par­ty for the Chil­dren of the Poor’ are two of her projects which she has been com­mit­ted to in or­der to help the lives of the needy, par­tic­u­lar­ly around Christ­mas time. Mary tells us “My wings are those of love and they are wide­ly spread. My eyes are al­ways on ground lev­el.”

Moved by her com­pas­sion and kind­ness, the WE Mag team sought to learn more about Mary and her projects. Check out her in­ter­view be­low:

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

At present, I am work­ing on three main projects for the San­ta Rosa Soup Kitchen (SRSK). These projects are ones which we un­der­take an­nu­al­ly, around Christ­mas, to ben­e­fit the poor and needy fam­i­lies in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties through­out Ari­ma and en­vi­rons. The first event is a Christ­mas lun­cheon, where poor fam­i­lies are in­vit­ed to a Christ­mas meal of fes­tiv­i­ties, eats, drinks, and ca­ma­raderie. This year, our lun­cheon will be held on Sat­ur­day 14th De­cem­ber. Next, our largest ac­tiv­i­ty will be held, ‘The Dis­tri­b­u­tion of our Ham­pers’. One hun­dred large ham­pers are dis­trib­uted to the poor­est of the poor and oth­er needy fam­i­lies. This is done on 20th De­cem­ber. The bas­kets, which were wo­ven by the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, are re­turned year­ly. This al­lows us to re­main in con­tact with fam­i­lies and pro­vide them with oth­er nour­ish­ment, such as coun­selling, spir­i­tu­al guid­ance and where pos­si­ble, work. Our hope is that each fam­i­ly, grad­u­ate out of our pro­gramme and move on to a bet­ter life.

Next, there is the ‘Par­ty for the Chil­dren of the Poor’. This takes place on the same date as the Catholic Feast of Holy In­no­cence—usu­al­ly three days af­ter Christ­mas. Be­fore this event, the fam­i­lies are giv­en an en­ve­lope with writ­ing pa­per in it and ad­dressed to San­ta Claus. The chil­dren are to write a let­ter to San­ta telling him whether they have been good or naughty. Like any let­ter to San­ta, the well-be­haved chil­dren, must say what good deed they did. The chil­dren al­so ask for toys from San­ta; some tall or­ders as you can imag­ine! The par­ents of par­tic­i­pat­ing chil­dren are asked to post the let­ter in time for it to reach San­ta at the “North Pole” where his work­shop is lo­cat­ed. In San­ta’s Work­shop, there are NO iPads, cel­lu­lar phones, bi­cy­cles, or large re­mote-con­trol toys and def­i­nite­ly no guns. These are the guide­lines we share with per­sons who are do­nat­ing to our cause. We pre­fer to give these chil­dren lots of books and oth­er toys such as balls, dolls, ted­dy bears, puz­zles and very chal­leng­ing fam­i­ly games. On the day of the event, we in­vite San­ta Claus him­self to be present and to dis­trib­ute the gifts to each child who has sent a let­ter. The chil­dren en­joy this process from start to fin­ish and the ac­tiv­i­ty al­so en­cour­ages them to prac­tice their writ­ing, to ex­press them­selves, main­tain good be­hav­iour and to ex­er­cise pa­tience when wait­ing for gifts. The toys them­selves are meant to bring joy and fam­i­ly to­geth­er­ness.

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come and how did you deal with it?

My biggest chal­lenge is my­self/faith; when all has failed me, when the walls of hope come tum­bling down, deep with­in me there is this per­son who was cre­at­ed with the pow­er to over­come. I am then able, in my weak­est mo­ment, to look be­yond and draw strength from the source of my faith which is the on­ly con­stant in my life, Je­sus Christ. Thus, in my mo­ments of weak­ens, when I re­ly on Christ, I am at my strongest.

When the SRSK start­ed, my vi­sion was to serve my Parish of San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma. This has been ex­pand­ed. We now have peo­ple from as far as San­gre Grande and even Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas. So I ask my­self, “Is my vi­sion now for all the poor peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

My ul­ti­mate goal and biggest dream is to have a place: a ‘Home for the Poor’ where they can walk-in dur­ing their time of need and re­ceive not just food, but a place that is life giv­ing; through train­ing, coun­selling and teach­ing - a place to help one find one’s self, to know that there are peo­ple who show com­pas­sion and are will­ing to lis­ten to what they have to say; where they have a voice that mat­ters; where they are not judged or ridiculed. I want them to have a place where their dig­ni­ty can be re­stored and they are able to see their great­ness and to re­alise their po­ten­tial.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know?

I speak with a lot of brava­do and on many oc­ca­sions, with some hu­mour. How­ev­er, I am of­ten told that there is a stern­ness about me that could be very dis­cour­ag­ing. I think what peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence as stern­ness is ac­tu­al­ly a cloak that pro­tects a very ac­com­mo­dat­ing, hum­ble and lov­ing per­son es­pe­cial­ly to the weak and vul­ner­a­ble.

For what are you most grate­ful?

I am grate­ful that I can look be­yond the pover­ty and see the per­son and be able to serve them wher­ev­er, when­ev­er and in what­ev­er (their needs are). I am cre­at­ed to serve. I know who I am, who God says I am, what he says I am, when he says I am. I’m walk­ing in “pow­er”.


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