Overview:

St Joseph’s Padre Pio Ministry is a community outreach ministry dedicated to helping the poor and homeless in the Autauga County area.

Coordinators: Casey and Lisa Baker

Mission Statement:

“That is the goal of the Work: To care for the bodies - to arrive at the souls… Giving the benefit of your charity to all without distinction.” ~Padre Pio

Current Projects:

1. Dinner Boxes: a monthly food distribution to help families with young children in providing meals for their family. These families have been referred to us by local school systems and identified as needy.

2. Homeless Bags: small bags of toiletry items, socks, snacks, etc assembled and available to anyone in the parish to take and give to homeless persons.

3. Disaster Relief - Procedure in place to collect food, clothing, toiletries, and money to help affected community members in wake of disasters.

4. Prayer Group - members of Padre Pio Ministry who are engaged in continual prayer for those in need.

How It Works:

Prayer: The Padre Pio Prayer Group receives prayer requests and engages in steadfast prayer.

Food: Since opening the Padre Pio Pantry in December 2022, we have provided food to over 20 families each month. In addition to school families, we have also helped several single mothers who are clients at Mary’s Haven as well as four (4) parish families who were devastated by the January tornado.

Homeless Aid: Since establishing Padre Pio Ministry, we have handed out over 100 homeless bags to those in need.

Disaster Relief: We collected over 100 bags of donated clothing, shoes, toiletries, and paper goods to help those affected by the January tornado.

Long-Range Plan: For God’s Glory, Not Ours…

Since opening the Padre Pio Pantry, we have aimed to help approximately twenty (20) families each month. However, as we identify more households in need, we must strive to help each one. We’ve recently been contacted by another Prattville school to help with providing occasional assistance to ten (10) more families who struggle to feed their children, who often arrive at school hungry. As more needs are recognized within our community, our Padre Pio Ministry will need more assistance from those who are able to help us in helping others in the spirit of evangelization.

Why Help:

Jesus’ instruction to be “fishers of men” has not changed. It is still every Christian’s duty, and we should be about “our Father’s business”. It is vital to bridge the gap between our church and the community here in Prattville by ministering to those in need outside of the church. As more people come to our church for help, they, hopefully, will be compelled to strengthen their relationship with God, as well as teach their children about God’s love for all of us.