Pasta Family Fun Night to Aid St. Luke's Jamaica Missionaries

Eat delicious pasta and play some games on Saturday night, Jan. 11, to benefit another mission trip to Jamaica by high school students next month. 

St. Luke’s School in Barrington is hosting the Pasta Family Fun Night. It runs from 5 to 8 pm in the school gymnasium.

Trendy’s restaurant in Barrington is providing the pasta with red sauce and meatballs to be served by the Jamaica missionaries.  There will be salad as well with a cake made by Vienna Bakery in Barrington.

“Come eat, play games and enjoy the evening,” said Michele Pimentel of St. Luke’s, who is one of six adults taking 18 high school juniors and seniors to Jamaica during school vacation week.

The missionaries will work at the Blessed Assurance apostolate or foster home for 35 abandoned or disabled children, Pimentel said. The home is part of the Mustard Seed communities of Medfield, Mass., which cares for children and adults with disabilities, HIV/AIDS, pregnant teens and impoverished families.

Blessed Assurance is located in the mountain village of St. James Adelphi outside Montego Bay, she said. The students will do “work projects that will better the childrens’ lives,” she said.

The trip will be “unlike any camping trip they ever take,” said Pimentel, who is returning for the fourth time.

Imagine living without water or electricity for four to 12 hours each day, Pimentel said. The government controls the utilities and shuts off and turns on the water and power to ration it.

Blessed Assurance has four cistern-like tanks to hold rainwater, she said. That means the students may be using buckets to get water for bathing or cooking or mixing cement, she said.

"You just don't run down to the corner store to get a bottle of water," Pimentel said.

Cost of the Jamaica trip is $2,000 each. The kids raise all of the money through fundraising, so donations of any amount will be much appreciated, she said.

St. Luke’s School is located on Waldron Avenue off of Washington Road in West Barrington next door to St. Luke’s Parish.