Our parish is happy to support the mission of the Red Door in downtown Pittsburgh to feed the homeless by providing prepared sandwiches and snack bags.

There are three ways to participate in this ministry:

2) The second part of the program is for snack bag delivery to St. John Capistran on the last Tuesday of the month. (Clearances are NOT required for the snack bag portion of the program.) Drop-off is scheduled for 8:15-8:30 a.m. in the St. John Capistran parking lot, but alternate drop-offs can be arranged if necessary. Please see below for specific details about making snack bags.

3)  We are in need of volunteer drivers to deliver the sandwiches to the Red Door on the second Wednesday of the month and the snack bags on the last Tuesday of the month.

The schedule for the first half of 2025 for in-person sandwich making, along with the drop-off schedule for the snack bags, is listed below:

2025

January 14 - STM in-person sandwich making

January 28 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

February 11 - STM in-person sandwich making

February 25 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

March 11 - STM in-person sandwich making

March 25 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

April 8 - STM in-person sandwich making

April 29 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

May 13 - STM in-person sandwich making

May 27 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

June 3 - STM in-person sandwich making (CHANGED TO 1^ST TUESDAY OF THE MONTH DUE TO SUMMERFEST)

June 24 - SJC snack bag drop-off for delivery to Red Door

For the snack bag program, the Red Door asks for individual plastic bags containing the following items:

• 1 granola bar (should be easy to chew)
• 1 fruit cup
• 1 plastic spoon (does not need to be individually wrapped)
• 1 bag of chips
• 1 package of cookies or cake rolls

NOTE: The chips and cookies must be individually packaged. They do NOT want large bags of these items to be opened and portioned into separate zip lock bags for inclusion. They also will not accept homemade cookies.

The minimum donation is 250 bags, so we need 25 volunteers to provide 10 individual plastic bags each month containing the requested food items. If we are unable to field a full 25 volunteers, we will ask those who volunteered for that particular session to make a few additional bags based on what we still need. This is an all-volunteer program, and we ask that your donation be considered a charitable contribution to the program.

We have purchased plastic bags to hold the snacks. They are available at both church sites. But the Red Door also accepts the snacks in clean, grocery-store-size bags. So you may reuse your own CLEAN plastic bags if it is more convenient for you. There is a plastic container that holds bags rolled in groups of 10 in place at STM at the exterior doors leading to the parish office.

For SJC, there is a box containing bags rolled in groups of 10 in place, clearly marked, on the table inside the lobby of the entrance to SJC Capistran Hall. You can access this box before or after any weekday or weekend Masses. Additionally, there is a weatherproof plastic tub is in place at the outside entrance to the kitchen (left and around the corner from the hall entrance doors), also clearly marked, containing plastic bags rolled in groups of 10. These are accessible at any time to anyone who can't get into the church.

As indicated, the bags are rolled in groups of 10, and we would ask you to take only what you need for the current month, so we don't deplete our supply too quickly. As indicated above, you also have the option of reusing CLEAN plastic grocery-store-size shopping bags.

Please email Ann ([email protected]) or Karen ([email protected]) with any questions or to be added to our email list. An email is sent monthly with all the details of the program and asking for that month’s volunteers for the snack bags. Thank you for your interest in this important outreach to our brothers and sisters in need!