The Association, affiliated with ARCORES, the international Augustinian-Recollect solidarity Network, celebrates this meal in Getafe (Madrid) every year, together with a Eucharist and the memory and testimony of missionaries and volunteers.
As planned, last Sunday, October 27, the annual meeting and solidarity meal took place in Getafe (Madrid) in favor of Saint Monica’s Home, a project of the Augustinian Recollects in Fortaleza (Ceará, Brazil) that fights against abuse, exploitation, abandonment, violence and violation of the rights of girls and adolescents.
This year it was not possible to reach the hundred participants in the meal due to space restrictions in the place where the meal was held: there were 88 people attending, although some also participated remotely through the Zero Row. Previously, the partners and friends of HelpFortaleza gathered at the Parish of Our Lady of Good Sight of the Augustinian Recollects in the Sector III neighborhood of Getafe.
There was a Eucharist in which special prayers were given for the girls and adolescents welcomed at the Saint Monica’s Home, for the caretakers and workers who care for them and for the benefactors, volunteers and friends of the project in Brazil and Spain.
The parish priest, in his moving homily, encouraged people to maintain their commitment to the beneficiaries of the Home, comparing them to the blind man who meets Jesus: there is always hope and light, even in the darkest moments.
At the end of the Eucharist, a video of thanks from the director of the Saint Monica’s Home, the Augustinian Recollect José García Corcuera, was shown, and the testimony of Montse, one of the volunteers in 2024 at the Home, and Grazieni, who worked for 11 years as a social educator in the project, was heard live.
Recollect religious from the communities of Madrid and the main representatives of ARCORES were present at this festive and supportive day.
The Saint Monica’s Home offers its beneficiaries comprehensive care, inclusive education and emotional support. Sent to the Home by the competent authorities in matters of minors to remove them from the contexts of risk and aggression in which they lived, the Home becomes a fundamental pillar for them to be able to rebuild their lives and reintegrate into society with more guarantees of a dignified and happy future.
HelpFortaleza works tirelessly to support the projects of the Augustinian Recollect Family in that Brazilian city, which include the Saint Monica’s Home and the Saint Augustine Psychosocial Center, the latter focused on a hundred mothers who lead their single-parent families in a context of great vulnerability with the ultimate goal of preventing new cases of abuse and exploitation of minors from occurring.
