Several of St. Mary Parish’s cooking volunteers are seen while preparing a meal for the youth visiting with TEAMeffort’s mission trip to Ballard County. The volunteers who prepared the meal were Norma Alselm, Mary Margaret Higgins, Joan Hutchins, Keith Kleekemp, Patty Matuszewski, Chris and Sharon Naas, Harriet Rankin, Sondra Rankin, Jessica Riddle and Gengi Sullivan. COURTESY OF SHARON NAAS
St. Mary’s in LaCenter welcomes, feeds, TEAMeffort youth mission trip
BY SHARON NAAS, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
St. Mary Parish in LaCenter, Ky., including our pastor, Fr. Jude Okeoma, recently fed a group of 120 students visiting our area.
These students, through the TEAMeffort organization, ranged from ages 13 through 20+ coming from all over the United States to help repair, built or help in any way the needy. This group came to Ballard County and stayed one week at the local First Baptist Church that had accommodations for them. This year our parish fed them a taco dinner and enjoyed meeting these youth. After the meal some stood up and reported on where they were from and what they were involved in during their week of mission work here. They also have certain responsibilities to complete before they can participate, such as fundraising for travel, food and support for their group to participate. It was inspiring to hear their stories and see the love of Jesus so alive in their hearts.
TEAMeffort plans mission trips for youth; trips which are designed to be a mixture of hard work, spiritual growth and good clean adventurous fun. It is TEAMeffort’s desire that at the end of each mission trip, the youth will return to their churches in more cohesive groups, sharing in memories that will last a lifetime and enjoying a renewed excitement about what Jesus Christ is doing in all of their lives. TEAMeffort supplies the projects and all the logistics so the youth can focus on growth. Since 1993, TEAMeffort has brought over 200,000 students and leaders from thousands of churches of different denominations.
To learn more, visit https://teameffort.org.
Volunteers through TEAMeffort smile and enjoy a taco meal provided by St. Mary Parish in LaCenter. COURTESY OF SHARON NAAS
Originally printed in the August 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
