Guild celebrates 100 years
The Guild of Our Lady of Mercy celebrates its centenary with a special Mass at St Anthony's parish.
THE Guild of Our Lady of Mercy recently celebrated its centenary.
The Guild was started during the 1914 to 1918 World War, and aimed to help the poor in the greater Durban and KwaZulu-Natal areas.
The Guild was started by a Mrs Hooper, whose focus it was to offer comfort and clothing to the widows and children of soldiers and the destitute. Today, 14 members from different parishes, work from the Guild rooms meeting twice a month. Archbishop Hurley had the Guild rooms built in the grounds of St Anthony's Parish, Greyville, in 1987.
The Guild provides individuals, orphanages, day care centres, creches, school children, street children, the elderly and refugees with clothing and other necessities. Bags of soya soup powder and “Amandla Pap” are provided to numerous feeding schemes. Each autumn, on behalf of Cardinal Napier, the Guild buys and organises the distribution of thousands of blankets for missions and parishes in poor areas.
“We are very proud of the Centenary of The Guild of Our Lady of Mercy as it is groups of women through the past 100 years who have given their time and love to continue this work,” said Liz Walker.
The Guild celebrated its centenary at St Anthony's Parish Church. His Eminence Cardinal Napier, Rt Rev Bishop Barry Wood, Father Sean Mullin and Father Giraldo Herman concelebrated the Mass of Thanksgiving.
“Holy Mass was celebrated for all past and present members of the Guild, our benefactors, both big and small, who through the years have enabled us to continue our outreach and our guests who had come to help us celebrate,” said Liz.
Any donations of clothing or material for making girls' dresses and boys' boxer shorts would be greatly appreciated.
“We are just starting a drive to ask schools to do an outreach for new or second hand children's T-shirts. Mrs Dudu Mkhize sews our boys' boxer shorts but the price of T-shirts is such that we do not have the funds to purchase the large amounts of T-shirts we could distribute. We try to give the girls new dresses and panties and the boys new T-shirts and new boxer shorts. We then augment the parcels with good second hand clothing,” said Liz.
She said the Guild was willing to collect any donations. Contact Liz Walker on 031 562 1095 or 072 724 7673, Maureen Veeriah on 071 361 6276, or Father Sean at St Anthony's, Greyville on 031 309 3496.
