FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

aslivka@toledodiocese.org

rsandles@toledodiocese.org

NORWALK HIGH SCHOOL CLUB DONATES FUNDS TO MIRIAM HOUSE

    JAN. 4, 2012—NORWALK—The Miriam House, a Norwalk shelter for homeless women and children, is the recipient of $500 from the Norwalk High School Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). The student club is disbanding with the closing of the high school’s Family and Consumer Science Department at the end of the first semester on Jan. 12.
Members of FCCLA raised money through baking and selling cookies every day at school, according to Noreen Batchelor, recently retired Family and Consumer Science teacher and former club advisor.  Club funds were used in the past for FCCLA workshops, and Batchelor chose to donate the remaining funds to community organizations.
“We chose Miriam house because, first of all, we have donated to it in other ways over the last several years, and we just felt it was a way of giving back to our community,” Batchelor says.
The Miriam House is a ministry of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Toledo and provides transitional shelter for homeless women and their children for up to two years while clients develop skills needed to become self-sufficient. 
FCCLA also donated $1,000 to the Fisher-Titus Mammography Fund, $500 to Abigail Pregnancy Services and $350 to the Key Club.

In 2010, Catholic Charities served 31,000 people in the Diocese of Toledo by providing food, shelter, prescription and emergency rent assistance as well as adoption services, jail and prison ministries and services to the elderly. 
 
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