November 27, 2009 in City

For co-chair of Christmas Bureau, a call to compassion

The Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire impressed by size of charity

Megan Cooley Correspondent

Video: The Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire

The Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire, who is an accomplished pianist, will serve as co-chair for the 2009 Christmas Bureau.
(Full-size photo)

Christmas Fund: How to give

Donations will be listed in daily newspaper stories. Donors should clearly indicate how they want their donations credited in the newspaper. Donors who wish to remain anonymous should indicate their wishes on a note separate from their checks.

Mail: Donations should be mailed to Christmas Fund, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 516, Spokane, WA 99210-0516. Please don’t mail them to the S-R’s street address.

Drop off: The S-R’s downtown office, 999 W. Riverside Ave.; Spokane Valley office, 13208 E. Sprague Ave.; or Coeur d’Alene office, 608 Northwest Blvd.

Online: Via PayPal at spokesman.com/christmasfund. Click “Donate.”

The Christmas Bureau: Open from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. from Dec. 9-12 and Dec. 14-19 at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. For more information, call (509) 459-5453 or (800) 789-0029, ext. 5453.

On the Web: spokesman.com/christmasfund.

Shared leadership

The Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire will share the Christmas Bureau chairmanship with Yvonne Shulman, who works as Catholic Charities’ planned giving coordinator.

Like St. Hilaire, Shulman will be at the bureau every day, making sure things run smoothly.

“It’s always important for us in the support roles … to get a better understanding of the clients that we serve and the needs that are out there,” she said.

She hopes that being at the bureau will also bring her joy as she copes with personal tragedy – her husband of 38 years, Rick Shulman, died Nov. 10 after an eight-month battle with cancer.

“We have to look at the bright side of things,” Shulman said. “There were so many blessings that came to us during that time.”

Rick was active in church outreach and Yvonne said he would have been by her side at the bureau this December.

“He was my rock,” she said.

On the Web: Watch the Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire play the piano and talk about his role in the Christmas Bureau at spokesman.com/video.

When the Rev. Kenny St. Hilaire was about 7 years old, he thought he might want to be a priest one day.

The youngest of seven children in a devout Roman Catholic family, St. Hilaire would “play Mass” in his Pasco living room.

Today, St. Hilaire celebrates the Mass – for real – at St. Patrick and St. Francis Xavier churches, where he is associate pastor. At Bishop White Seminary, he is spiritual director for six seminarians.

This winter, St. Hilaire will take on an additional role: co-chairman of the annual Christmas Bureau.

The Christmas Bureau is a 10-day event in December that distributes food vouchers, toys and books to needy families. Organizers expect to serve more than 32,000 people, including about 16,000 children, this year.

The Spokesman-Review Christmas Fund, which finances the bureau through donations from the community, launches today with a goal of raising $500,000.

The newspaper partners with Catholic Charities and Volunteers of America in this annual holiday charity.

“I’m impressed by the magnitude of the operation,” St. Hilaire said.

Despite his living-room Masses, St. Hilaire shelved his thoughts of becoming a priest when he was young.

“Saying you want to be a priest is not the coolest thing to do in elementary school,” he said.

As he entered his senior year studying engineering at Central Washington University, St. Hilaire called on his priest, thinking perhaps he could work for the church.

“I didn’t care about making a ton of money or climbing a ladder,” he said. “As long as there was food on the table and a roof over my head, I’d be happy.”

St. Hilaire was stunned, though, when the priest asked if he’d ever considered joining the clergy.

A year later, he and his girlfriend of four years ended their relationship so he could enter Bishop White and find out if the priesthood was for him. After that, he figured, he’d be able to marry and start a family with peace of mind.

But St. Hilaire immediately felt at home in the seminary. He’d found a place of “peace and happiness.”

After finishing at Bishop White, St. Hilaire studied theology in Rome for five years and was there in 2005, during the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

“There was an immense feeling of joy among the seminarians” on the day of Pope Benedict’s election, St. Hilaire said. “They were running laps carrying the Vatican flag and offering cheers to the new pope.”

St. Hilaire returned to Spokane in 2008 to take on his current roles.

The priest, who is 30 and plays classical piano in his spare time, says what he likes most about his work is helping people experience joy, mercy and love.

Being a priest involves listening to people’s hardships. Strangers approach him often and say, “Father, will you pray for me?” and then go on to describe money troubles or a child’s illness, he says.

St. Hilaire said he’s honored to serve the Christmas Bureau.

“I’m sure it helps to enkindle the Christmas spirit in folks and give them hope in times of hardship,” he said. “Christmas is a hard time of year for a lot of people. It’s nice to have these lights that bring people joy.”

Megan Cooley can be reached at (509) 459-5489 or meganc@spokesman.com.

Two comments on this story so far. Add yours!

Sugar Shane on November 27 at 12:21 p.m.
“The Christmas Bureau is a 10-day event in December that distributes food vouchers, toys and books to needy families”.
WRONG! There are no income limitations Megan, you should do a story on people that show up in new cars and new clothes that clearly dont need assistance but come for it anyways, taking away from people that could really use it in order to save themselves some cash. Its disgusting. You know who you are.

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Megan Cooley on November 27 at 10:20 p.m.
Shane,

Any good cause has its share of people who abuse the system. In fact, I’ll be addressing that issue in a story that’s running in the S-R on Saturday.

No, I won’t be going after each person who shows up at the Christmas Bureau in “new cars and new clothes,” like you suggest. I’ll be touching on how it’s worthwhile to support programs like the Christmas Bureau despite the few who take advantage.

The bureau will make Christmas brighter for more than 30,000 people this year, half of whom are children. More than half the cities in Washington have populations smaller than that.

Just as there are people in any town who will make dishonest choices, there will be people at the bureau who will too, I’m sure. But any Christmas Bureau volunteer or organizer will tell you that those cases are few and far, far between. The majority of the recipients are there because it’s their only option—it’s the only way that they’ll have anything to give their kids on Christmas morning. How must that feel?

Besides, in the Sunday piece you’ll see Fr. St. Hilaire (the subject of today's article) tell us that giving isn’t just good for the people who receive—it’s also good for the givers. Being generous—with no strings attached, no judgments made about people we don’t even know—simply feels good.

Don’t you think?

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