Church forced to stop providing free community meal. (03/11/14) – Over the past several months, St. Catherine of Siena ANCC, a small independent Catholic Church, has been offering a free monthly community lunch to the Cherokee Street community. On Tuesday, after receiving an “anonymous” complaint, the St Louis City Health Department informed the church they can no longer provide this meal nor have any food related activities in the church effectively immediately. Recently featured on KSDK News, St. Catherine’s is a small but growing independent Catholic Church which recently relocated to the Historic St. Matthew Church at the corner of Jefferson and Potomac in the Cherokee Street Neighborhood. “Recognizing the need to help the local community, we decided to offer a free simple warm meal once a meal to anyone needing a meal,” commented Fr. Phillip Lichtenwalter, pastor of St. Catherine’s. The first free meal was hosted on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday where around 75 people were fed. St. Catherine’s joined efforts with the Boys and Girls Club of St Louis who provided 10-15 volunteers to help with the monthly event. “Our neighborhood has an extremely high percentage of low income families and we as a parish thought this could be our little way of helping,” Connie Butler, founding member of St. Catherine’s. “With any of the locations we have worshiped, never have we been required to have a permit for ministry or face heavy fines.” The group had previously believed they were in the clear because they were serving food on private property, but the health department explained differently. “We were informed that we couldn’t even have coffee and donuts after mass on Sundays because we believe ‘All are welcome’ therefore it’s a public event subject to city rules and regulations,” remarked Fr. Lichtenwalter. Until the church is able to raise the necessary funds to purchase such permits, the Free Monthly Community Lunch will be postponed indefinitely. The church is asking for any community support or guidance on this matter. St. Catherine of Siena American National Catholic Church located at 2613 Potomac Street, worships with Mass on Sundays at 11am. All are welcome! For more information, please call: (314) 329-8207 or visit the church’s website at SaintCatherineSTL.org.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 13:38:56 +0000
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