The Saint Mary Men’s Fellowship has now completed two years of brotherhood and service. Our objective is to enhance the spiritual growth and brotherhood of the young men and fathers of our Church and to use their talents and gifts to enrich Parish Life. Other than a few hundred dollars we generated to cover expenses for mentorship meetings, we had no income or expenses this year. Most of our expenses were covered out-ofpocket by our members.
There were three main themes of our ministry this year: service to our church, spiritual growth, and fellowship among each other and with our sisters in the Mother-Toddler Group.
Our major project was the launch of the St. Raphael Mentorship Program, headed by Marc Nassif, Joseph Zogaib, George Chalhoub and Robert Zaid. A group of over 40 volunteers (men and women) met on April 30th to learn about the importance of student mentorship and ways to get involved. The first Student Mentorship Day was held on May 16th. Ten students participated in a carefully-crafted curriculum teaching communication skills, critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking, goal setting and relationship building while applying Orthodox Christian values. Since then, students have been paired up with Mentors in our community in a longitudinal program. The next Student Mentorship Day will take place on Saturday, March 5th.