St. Joseph’s Home is situated on a several beautiful acres of land. Our Residents and their families and friends often venture outside to enjoy our grounds.It’s a great opportunity for fresh air, exercise, companionship and quiet prayer in the sitting areas around our property. We try our best to keep our plants and shrubs healthy, but the hard Midwestern weather takes its toll on the landscaping. And, just like everything else, plants, shrubs and trees are very expensive.
Last fall we were very blessed to receive a donation of a large quantity of plants and shrubs from Charles J. Fiore Nurseries. Delighted, we safely positioned our potted plants for a long winter’s nap, until the spring planting season. As the winter months past and the spring weather slowly crept in, we had no idea how we would get the hundreds of plants and shrubs properly placed and planted on our grounds. But, as we do with all of our needs, we asked St. Joseph for help.
Being the good and dependable provider, St. Joseph went straight to work. As a part of our neighboring parish, St. Thomas of Villanova ‘s 50 year anniversary celebration, parishioners decided to seek out service projects. They wanted to express their gratitude to God by using their talents through volunteer projects in the Palatine area. Since we are neighbors here in Palatine, the parishioners quickly considered our Home as a possible site to pursue a project. A phone call in which parishioners Marin Finnegan, Deacon Mark Duffy and his wife Anne, explained their initiatives and desire to volunteer for St. Joseph’s Home, led to a meeting with the Little Sisters. Since our needs for volunteer projects are many, the discussion readily evolved into the possibility of the parishioners of St. Thomas of Villanova taking on the huge project of planting all of our donated bushes and shrubs.
Not only did St. Joseph provide the help, he also provided a landscape specialist who is part of their parish family. Good weather accompanied the first weekend of work followed by enough rain to provide the needed follow up of moisture to sink the root system properly. Several more weekends of generous volunteer hours will follow.
Happily, as our Residents enjoy the spring weather, new greenery sprinkled throughout our grounds will delight their eyes and their hearts.And, as spring unfolds into summer so will the new flowers that will paint brilliant colors across the grounds. God bless the parishioners of St. Thomas of Villanova!
A little help from our friends (and St Joseph)