Northern Deanery CCWs gather for service project to help people locally and internationally

Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

OGDEN — Women from four parishes in the Northern Deanery gathered at Saint James the Just Catholic Church on Sept. 13 for a service project to benefit people of need in the Ogden area as well as women in Zimbabwe.

The event was the culmination of several months of interfaith effort, during which the Catholic women worked with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to collect cotton material that would be shipped to Zimbabwe for women there to weave into rugs and baskets to help them support themselves.

In the spring, the Councils of Catholic Women of the parishes of Holy Family in South Ogden, Saint James the Just in Ogden, Saint Mary in West Haven and Saint Rose of Lima in Layton asked for donations of cotton material and thread, as well as cash donations to purchase hygiene items. The women then sewed some of the material into bags for 400 hygiene kits, which they assembled at the Sept. 13 event.

The kits were to be distributed to the YCC Family Crisis Center, the Lantern House and the Ogden Rescue Mission. All three organizations serve people in need in Ogden.

The project was intentionally done to benefit both local organizations and also one abroad, said Georgia Nicholas, a Northern Deanery CCW board member.

In July, about a dozen women gathered to cut the donated material into two-inch strips. At the Sept. 13 event, women from all four parishes spent the morning winding strips of cotton cloth into balls, which the LDS Church would ship to women in Zimbabwe, “because they already have the connections set up with these ladies,” said Patrice Mingo, a member of the Saint James the Just Parish CCW board.

Cost would have prohibited the CCW women from shipping the material to Africa, she added.

The project came about because Nicholas was contacted by a family member who is a member of the LDS Church and asked if the Catholic women could use a load of cotton material that was donated by a quilter. Members of the LDS ward had used some of the material to make baby blankets and other items, “but there was so much material left over, and I thought, ‘We’ll continue on with it,’” Nicholas said.

For the hygiene items, Nicholas asked the Knights of Columbus council at St. James the Just Parish for a monetary donation. “They were happy to give, and then through word of mouth we raised over $1,150,” she said.

All three of the recipient organizations requested soap and washcloths, “so that was our first items that we purchased,” Nicholas said. “And then as we got more money we started adding to it.”

The women considered doing a donation drive to collect hygiene items, but to ensure that they were able to place the same items in each bag, they decided instead to request monetary donations, Mingo said.

The CCW of each of the four parishes was responsible for sewing or purchasing 100 hygiene bags; each also donated cotton material. All told, the service project required more than 1,000 hours of donated time by the CCW members, which does not include the efforts of the members of the LDS Church, Mingo said.