On the first JPIC Global Service Day, the Mother House community and the Mother House staff demonstrated their commitment to JPIC Imperative 3, Caring for our Common Home, by cleaning the streets around the Mother House.
On this very windy day, the twelve participants worked in three groups, named after ecologists Leonardo Boff, Vandana Shiva and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. These enthusiastic people put on vests with the Sacred Heart logo and set off to sweep the streets, which were in need of a good clean. Garden gloves on their hands, they cheerfully grabbed brooms, dustpans, garden weeders and bin bags.
During their one and a half hours of cleaning, Anne, Bodo, Georgina, Maria, Mari Carmen, Marie-Jeanne, and Cuca, Dina, Francesca, Francy, Susana and Yolanda were approached by neighbors asking to be called up for the next cleaning day, passers-by kindly giving them tips for their service, and car drivers stopping their engines in the middle of the road to thank them. The JPIC cleaners filled in fifteen binbags with cigarette butts, leaves, pizza boxes, plastic bottles, paper and dog poo. They unexpectedly came across underwear, elegant outfits, a pregnancy test and the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Giovanni Verga!
When they went back to the Mother House, Sabina, the housekeeper, had a lovely refreshment ready to celebrate the JPIC event and the Mater Admirabilis Feast.