The new toolbar is free to download and allows you to raise money for our cause virtually every time you search or shop online! Once added to IE or Firefox, each time you shop at more than 1,400 stores (from Amazon to Zazzle!) a percentage of your purchase will automatically be donated to our cause – at no cost to you (and you may even save money as the toolbar also provides you thousands of discount coupons and free shipping offers!). The toolbar also has a search box and each time you search the Internet, about a penny is donated to our cause.

Please do this right away on the 19th so that we can earn the $1 bonus per toolbar!  And, please pass this along to all of your friends. The two minutes it takes to add this toolbar to your browser can make a big difference for our parish!

Concessions will be available all weekend, including donuts and coffee on Saturday morning.  There will be a separate room where you may sit and relax away from the bustle of the fair while you enjoy your food.

Entertainment Books will also be on sale all weekend.  A Milwaukee-area edition is only $35 ($5 off the cover price!) and you can take it home with you and start saving immediately.  Perhaps you have relatives out-of-town, or perhaps your family has a “summer home” in some other part of the country?  You will be able to order an Entertainment book from any region of the country for anywhere from $25-$40.  Canada and Puerto Rico editions are also available.  Payment is due on purchase, so please plan ahead!  Checks will be accepted for Entertainment Books only.  Remember, they make great Christmas gifts!

This is a completely indoor, handicap-accessible event, with ample free parking.  We hope to see you there!

Now, we still need plenty of volunteers in order to make this event a successful fundraiser for the parish.  If you are willing and able to volunteer a few hours of your time on the weekend of November 6th-8th, please click here to fill out our volunteer form and you will be contacted to confirm your shift.  We especially need help for set up and clean up.

We are also in need of some food items for our concession stand.  We need cookies/bars/brownies, cans of diet soda, individual-size bags of chips, shredded cheese and shredded lettuce.  Please, shredded only.  If you are able to donate any of these items, please bring them to the Parish Office any time during business hours next week, or on November 7th from 6:00-8:00pm.

We are looking forward to this event, and we believe it will be quite successful, but we need your help to pull it off.  If you have any questions, please email the Craft Fair Coordinators with any questions you may have.  Thank you for anything you can do!

St. Therese parish is again invited to meet the challenge of helping end hunger in the Milwaukee area and the world. This year’s CROP Walk will be held on Sunday, October 11th, 2009, starting from Veterans Park at the Milwaukee Lakefront.

This year, we have set a goal of having 50 walkers representing our parish participate in the CROP Walk. Please consider joining us for a beautiful fall afternoon by Milwaukee’s Lakefront.

On the CROP Walk website, there are areas to be an “E-Walker” or to sponsor your favorite walker: go to the Milwaukee Crop Hunger Walk page to sign up as an individual, as a family, or a whole team, and then start e-mailing family and friends to sponsor you.  You could can also go directly to St. Therese team and sign up with us! We will also be available after mass on September 26th/27th or October 3rd/4th to register you in person.

Even if you are unable to join us at the walk, you can still help!

• Donate food during our food drive leading up to the CROP Walk. Our parish walkers will be taking the food down to the CROP Walk to donate to Hunger Task Force. Please take a look at the list of preferred items below. Children, the elderly and the ill are less likely to suffer from under-nutrition or malnutrition when they receive a diet of preferred food items.
• Sponsor one of our walkers!
• Volunteer! We would appreciate help registering walkers at St. Therese, stuffing bulletins on September 2nd and/or transporting collected food to the CROP Walk on October 11th. The Greater Milwaukee CROP Walk also needs help at the Lakefront on the 11th to help distribute crop walk buttons, work in the registration tent, food spotters to direct food delivery to the packaging site, route markers and many other opportunities.

Members of the 2008 St. Therese CROP Walk team

Food items needed include: canned corn, green beans, carrots and peas, dry cereal, oatmeal, grits, pancake mixes, canned pears, apricots, pineapple and peaches, powdered or concentrated infant formula (Nestle Good Start), baby food and diapers, pastas, rice (plain or mixes), potato mixes, macaroni and cheese dinners, canned meat, poultry, fish, peanut butter, beans, nuts and high-protein main dishes such as chili and stews, canned or dry soups (vegetable, tomato, chicken and pea). Before you donate, check to ensure that the food is not expired, damaged, unlabeled or opened.

I know that we can meet our goal and have fun helping to prevent poverty and hunger here in Milwaukee and across the world. To volunteer or for further questions, you can talk to Barb Gritzmacher (third from left in photo),  Donna Maccani (sixth from left), or Cathy Smith (holding the sign).

Our Entertainment Book Sales are finally and officially underway! The books arrived this week, so thank you to all who have sold in advance. This weekend will be your first opportunity to pick up your books to deliver your orders. The books are $35 each, but anyone who’s had one before knows that they pay for themselves in just a few uses.  We will be selling them after all masses one weekend a month until the end of the year.  We will also be selling them all weekend at our Craft Fair on November 7th/8th.  Take a peek at this flyer to see just a few of the businesses that offer coupons in the book.

Do you spend winters in a warmer climate?  Or perhaps you’d like to give one as a gift to relatives in another state.  You can now purchase Entertainment Books for any region in the country and still give credit to St. Therese.  Simply click here to go to the website to search for the book you want and order it online.  A lot of other regions are even cheaper than the Milwaukee edition!  If you are uncomfortable ordering online, please contact Courtney or Cathy in the Parish Office to request your book, and once we receive your check to cover the amount, we will place the order for you.

This is an amazing fundraiser for us.  If each family in our parish purchases  just one book (500 total), we will earn $8500 pure profit.  All we have to do is sell 50 books to reach the highest profit margin.  At that point, we will be earning 50% of each book’s cover price.  We would like to make this a yearly event, but it depends how well it goes this year.  Please help us reach our goal by asking your family and friends to purchase one, or buy them as Christmas gifts–they’re good until November 2010.

Still not sure if you’re ready to buy one?  Please stop by our table under the balcony at church this weekend and thumb through one of the books.  We’re sure that you’ll find plenty of businesses that you already patronize.  You will save money on the things you already purchase!  That’s just smart shopping.

Thanks to all of you who have already supported this endeavor!

Canticle Choir provides sung prayer leadership at funerals. It rehearses the second Tuesday each month from September through May.

Cantor Ministry provides sung leadership at the 5:00 pm and 8:00 am weekend liturgies and the 10:00 liturgy on the third Sunday of the month. The schedule is flexible and rehearsals are planned at your convenience.

Cherub Choir — for children ages 3-8 years old — sings for the Multigenerational Christmas Liturgy and at the 10:00 am Liturgy on Mother’s Day.

Instrumentalist: No matter what instrument you play well, St. Therese Music Ministry will find liturgies for you to accompany. High School students are encouraged to join this ministry. The 10:00 Mass Praise Band would love to have a drummer join them. Yes, this position is still open.

Kids In the Middle Kantor Khoir: This newly forming group for students ages 9-13 years old will cantor for the 10:00 am Mass on the third Sunday of the month.

Sound Board Ministry: Maintain consistently good sound for liturgies. Training is provided at your convenience. 5:00 pm weekend Masses are especially in need of Sound Board Ministers.

St. Therese Sunday Choir provides sung prayer leadership at the  10:00 am weekend liturgies. Rehearsals are Wednesdays at 7:30 pm.

Participating in any parish ministry rewards you in ways you could not have imagined.
Ask our current participants: they’ll gladly tell you why they keep coming back year after year.

If any of these ministries sounds intriguing, contact Elterine (Dusty) at: jankowe@sainttheresemilwaukee.org

• To any quilters out there—we are reviving the Little Flower Quilters to create a beautiful item for the Craft Fair’s raffle.  If you are interested in helping out, please come to an informational meeting on Wednesday, July 22nd at 7:00pm in Miriam’s Corner.
• We need plenty of crafters to fill Heck Hall.  A 10′ x 10′ booth (including table and chairs, if you want) is only $50 for the two-day event.  If you don’t want to host your own booth, how about donating an item or two that St. Therese can sell?   We also need larger handmade items for our raffle.
• Are you able and willing to help out on the weekend of the event? We need everything from set-up and take-down helpers to raffle ticket sellers to popcorn poppers!
• We appreciate any monetary donations as well. If we are able to cover the costs of the licenses and food up front, then everything we take in that weekend will be profit!

Thank you to those of you who have registered already!  We’re looking forward to a very crafty weekend in November.  If you have any further questions, please contact the craft fair coordinators or leave a comment below.

Items needed:
Baby Wipes
Glue/Glue Sticks
Colored Tissue Paper
Paint
Poster Board
Storage Crates/Totes/Bins

Stores Frequented:
Jo-Ann Fabrics/Michael’s
Menard’s
Office Depot
Oriental Trading Co
Pick ‘N Save Food Stores
Sam’s Club/Walmart
Target

Please click here to open the survey.