OUR ANNUAL HAITI FESTIVAL!
             A HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR!

Our ANNUAL HAITIAN FESTIVAL FUNDRAISER: Every May, a Haitian Festival celebrates the twinning of our parishes with wonderful Caribbean food, live music, a silent auction of art, gift baskets and many other goods and services, as well as some interesting stories about the twinning project.  It is our largest fundraiser of the year.  Francis Mackie's mother is our main and very talented chef and Diana Snouffer organizes the entire event.

Our most recent HAITIAN FESTIVAL was celebrated on MAY 12, 2012. Thanks to the hard work of the Haiti Committee and some generous donations of autction items, it was a highly successful and enjoyable event.  We had  an AMAZING silent auction once again coordinated by Diana Snouffer.

Diana is always looking for silent auction items for next year, so if you would  like to make a silent auction donation, please contact Diana Snouffer at snouffer65@comcast.net Great things to donate include game tickets, vacation getaway weekends, collectibles, art pieces, airplane tickets or frequent flier miles, dinner for two.... anything of value we would love to offer in our auction! For more information, please contact Diana Snouffer at snouffer65@comcast.net.

LAST  YEAR our annual Haitian Festival was on MAY 7 2011. It was a huge success and featured live music that everyone enjoyed and delicious food as well as a great silent acution.

For our  May Haitian Festival  on  May 8th 2010, we had a very special guest:   Father Verdieu! Father Verdieu gave a very moving testimony on what a great blessing the twinning project has been to St. Josephs and how much the children love their new school. Jack Reid recounted the many efforts made to help our twin parish toward greater prosperity and health, and spoke about the new school and the 2009 earthquake. The Festival once again featured authentic Haitian Food (generouslyand deliciously prepared again by the mother of FrancisMackie), live music featuring the very talented Karen Reid, and a Silent Auction.

The 2009 Haitian Festival was also a huge success: Everyone had a wonderful time and over $8,000 was raised in critically needed funds for our Haiti projects and mission trips. On May 9, 2009 St Mary’s hosted our first annual ‘Haitian Festival’ to raise funds for the construction of a combination primary and secondary school in Carcasse, Haiti.  The event consisted of dinner (Caribbean cuisine), cash bar, silent auction, donation table, face painting, children’s presentation, continuous slide show from two previous Haiti visits, and a short talk by Jack Reid on his experiences in Haiti.

Below is a picture and excerpt from The Catholic Standard website about the fundraiser as it appeared on May 14, 2009.

"Hannah Bush reads about a girl her age from the village of Carcasse in Haiti during a Haitian festival at St. Mary's Parish in Barnesville on May 9. Behind her stands Liz Smith, the director of religious education.St. Mary's is a small country parish located in the foothills of Sugarloaf Mountain. Here, where children feed donkeys that graze nearby and home-made jam is sold at the summer fair, parishioners are learning to live in global solidarity with Catholics in another rural parish."