More than 176 souls gathered at St. Patrick’s Church in Damariscotta Mills Friday to pray and raise funds for the Haitian relief.
All the proceeds, more than $8000, will be sent to a little Episcopal parish in the village of Gros Morne to feed refugees and help provide medical help, said Susan Meade, the committee chair.
“It was a grand success, a most wonderful evening. Everyone pitched in. We even had a priest washing dishes,” she said.
Diners who paid $25 to attend the event were treated to a special menu of Haitian food including a spiced braised pork dish called “Griot of Pork.”
All the food was donated and prepared by the committee freeing all proceeds for the relief effort, she said. A group of Lincoln Academy students pitched in with the effort.
Held on the one-month anniversary of the earthquake that some report has killed more than 230,000, the dinner began with two members of the clergy offering prayers for the living and the dead.
“Welcome all. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti,” said Father Frank J. Murray, the pastor of All Saints Parish at St. Charles’s Church in Brunswick.
“Let us pray for the survivors, pray for the dead, pray for the relief workers,” said Bishop Chilton Knudsen.
Bishop Knudsen, the retired Episcopal bishop of Maine, has worked as a missionary in Haiti since her retirement. She said the Gros Morne church is a “node” or a center for providing assistance to other churches in the area.
“Some of the churches have buildings, while others are “house churches, where services are held in homes,” she said.
Part of the reason she retired was to serve as a missionary in Haiti. “I was supposed to be there right now, but since the earthquake, they tell me they need me more here,” she said.
As part of her duties, Bishop Knudsen said she has been ministering to the large Haitian community in Toranto.
Frazier Meade, one of the dinner’s organizers, said the Gros Morne pastor, Pere Jean Lenord Quatorze, reports more than 20,000 refugees have moved into this village, located in the mountains, about four hours from Cap Haitien.
The Gros Morne parish is “partnered” with St. Andrews in Newcastle. The two churches have exchanged visitors while St. Andrews parishioners have provided support for their partner in Haiti.
The dinner, dubbed Heart for Haiti, featured décor, music and a display of Haitian carnival masks from the collection of former U. S. Ambassador to Haiti, Bruce Dean Curran of Damariscotta.
Churches joining to assist the dinner were: St. Andrew’s Episcopal, Newcastle; St. Columba’s Episcopal, Boothbay Harbor; St. Giles’ Episcopal, Jefferson; St. Phillip’s Episcopal, Wiscasset; St. Patrick’s Catholic, Newcastle and the Midcoast Meeting of Friends, Damariscotta and Water of Life Lutheran Church in Newcastle.
