Urban Missionaries of Our Lady of Hope

As we start the year 2020, we have many issues to face, ideas to weigh, and people to meet. In 2019, we started our housing and student incentive programs. We saw increased traffic at both our food pantries. Additionally, some of our involved volunteers are cutting back. All of these have made us realize, once again, “the poor will be with us always.” Once again, when I opened the doors at 5:00 A.M. on October 5, 2019 there were 4 mothers waiting for us. When events like this happen it always Read more [...]

Working as the LittleStore manager has been a great opportunity for me. Not only have I been able to get practical experience (and sharpen my skills working on the website and newsletter), but I have also had daily contact with a great pool of volunteers and employees here at 242 Canterbury Street.  It has also worked wonders for my prayer life. We are blessed to have a chapel upstairs, and every week we all have the opportunity to get together for a prayer meeting. This weekly prayer meeting Read more [...]

Christmas is upon us!!  Once again the door went up at 5:00 A.M. on October 5, 2019 and there were four mothers waiting to sign up their children for Christmas gifts. And so it begins! We will be taking names every Saturday until the first Saturday of December. We are also taking names for five Sundays starting October 13, 2019.  Needless to say, we need your help getting this work done. You should all have received your invitation to our 40th Anniversary Celebration on October 26, Read more [...]

Welcome to the Christmas Season! Once again, we are reaching out to you for a donation of your hard earned cash so that we can continue our Christmas Giving Program.  Every year, we tell you a story about a special moment that made all of us who were volunteering stop whatever we were doing and smile. We have come to call these “our Christmas moments.” This year I want to explain to you just how important your gift to us is, and how hard we work before we spend any of it on Christmas Read more [...]

It is with great sadness that we inform you all that a beloved volunteer, John, passed away last month. John was a constant fixture in The LittleStore, and the staff remember him fondly. The men and women who volunteer here and give of themselves and their time can tell you it is no easy task. There is a constant need for help here, and John filled it every week with a smile and, so often, a joke. We can tell you that John always thought of the little things. Lost screws and bolts didn’t stay Read more [...]

All I can say is, it was “a day from hell!” Usually when you get to this part of Streetlights you find a story about those we help, their struggles, problems, or dilemmas and how we helped. Well this one is about me, the Flea market, and all the things that conspired to make this day, a day we will never forget, “a day from hell” You have had days like this, everyone does, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take. Let me begin with some background material. Every Saturday, starting Read more [...]

Can you believe it? It has been forty years since that day in October 1979 when Kathy and I,  listening to Fr. Paul Tougas, director of the Permanent Diaconate Program, ask for volunteers to help in sponsoring a Vietnamese family, looked at each other and said, “Yes.”  We have been saying “yes” ever since. Now it is time for us to pause and celebrate what the Lord has done for us. In looking back, it is unbelievable the gift of grace that has poured down upon our work. It is Read more [...]

(Hi everyone! This is Jeffrey Hall. For a change of pace, I thought I would include an article from my point of view about my work as our Retail Operations Manager. I'm happy to share my first article on the web blog, and I hope you all enjoy!) We were in the middle of a heatwave, furiously sorting through clothes when it happened. Our back store operations employee approached me at the end of her shift, and just by the look on her face, I could tell something was wrong. “I think I lost my Read more [...]

Did you ever hear the phrase WWJD? Well, I have more times than I would care to admit. It translates to “What Would Jesus Do?” It has been used in the past to teach young adults a method of determining how they should respond to life’s issues. I used to have some fun toying with the many different answers that would come to mind when I would bump up against one of life’s little dilemmas. Over time, I thought of it less and less until it faded way back in my memory. Then along comes the Read more [...]

Once again, I have to awaken that Christmas spirit in you, and I do know some of you are thinking, “This is way too soon!” I assure you we must be on our way, for too soon the winds will be cold and the trees barren and the signs of Christmas will begin to show. As always, we are reaching out to you for your time and money. Without both of these we cannot do Christmas. So here is the plan to date. Again this year we need: NAME TAKERS: I need volunteers to take names of the children Read more [...]

Well, we are coming out of our winter time and things are heating up as spring approaches. We have been busily working on a number of projects that address the growth that we have experienced over the past three years. We have re-organized our department structure, added two new outreach programs, Outreach to the Elderly and St. Stephen Housing Initiative, all while moving our computer information to “the cloud” as they say. As we look towards spring, we are planning our Summer Flea market, Read more [...]

Once again we are taking on a larger than life problem, the housing of newly arrived refugees, immigrants, and asylees. Since our very beginning, we have struggled with this problem. When refugees and asylees arrive, there is a great rush to find them a place to live. As you can imagine, given that they have no job, or any other means of support, life gets difficult fast. It is very rare that landlords are willing to waive the first and last month’s rent, along with the security deposit. In Worcester, Read more [...]

My first memory of Bruce is when I was studying for the diaconate program at Barlin Acres in West Boylston. He was the maintenance man. He was a hulk of a man with red hair and a broad easy smile. As time went by, I had more and more occasion to work with him on various project for my fledgling ministry. Bruce would always say yes whenever I asked for his help. After his ordination to the diaconate, I would spend time with him whenever we went to the annual diaconate retreat. I liked to sit Read more [...]

You have heard me say many times in the past, “there is no such thing as an easy day.” When Kathy and I were on vacation in early March, I received a message from the office that Cindy called and was very upset because of her 32-year-old niece had died. I immediately dialed Cindy’ number and after a few rings I heard, “Hello.” “Cindy, this is Walter Doyle calling,” I said and in a voice racked with pain and sobbing I heard, “Walt, my niece died this morning” and then I was unable Read more [...]

February 2nd was a cold, cold day and rather quiet in the Little Store because of the cold.  Riley was on the front counter and Walter and I were in the back office. A call came in from the front counter, “There’s an enormous donation coming in, you’d better get out here!”   What we found when we ran out to the front was Macey Poitras-Cote from St. Rose of Lima parish and her parents,  Pamela and Jason, unloading 2 trucks full of clothing donations. Macey was happy to Read more [...]

Our biggest source of volunteers far and away is from parishes and schools. It is also the biggest source of energy, noise, and fun times, not to mention the tremendous amount of work that gets done. Did I mention fun? Whenever a group comes in, we always give them a tour of the facilities and explain the work that we do. This gives rise to many questions, some easy, others difficult, but the one everyone asks is, “How long have you been doing this?” When I answer, “Forty years.” Read more [...]

(Hello everyone! We recently had a great group of super-motivated students from Assumption College come to The LittleStore to give a hand. They were great to work with, and helped out a ton. Assumption College posted an article on the visit, and why they decided to help out with the Urban Missionaries. Click the link below to read more directly on Assumptions site.) Traditional final examinations are generally held in a classroom with a proctor. For students enrolled in GLS 112: Perspectives Read more [...]

Once again we had our visit from Ed Lee, the owner of the buildings we occupy. Ed travels from China, where his factory is, to the U.S where he makes a number of stops at his customer’s places of business, and when gets to New England he stops by here to say hello and catch up on our progress. Ed has been a benefactor for our ministry ever since he donated monies to help us purchase our truck ten years ago. Since that time, he purchased the buildings we currently use, helped us purchase our Read more [...]

(We have had so many compliments on our fish tank, that we decided to offer another perspective on how we got it! Many of you have read Walter's take on the installation and purpose of our fish tank, so it's time to hear Kathy's thoughts on it!) Well, a fish tank story.  If you really want to know, it’s a love story.  It began as a sad story last March when our grandson, Gregory, lost his 51-year-old father to the flu. It was sudden and shocking to all his family. It was tragic, Read more [...]

The month of October was not very kind to us. We have had a cousin, a brother deacon, and a flea market brother die. The loss of these three has left us saddened because the thread that was holding us together has been cut. Joan Callinan My cousin Joan passed away from cancer of the brain. I had the privilege to be with her just two weeks before she passed. She was barely recognizable from the ravages of the cancer, but her indomitable spirit was alive and well. We shared some memories and Read more [...]