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Fintan Kilbride Makes a Difference
Some years ago, The Journal wrote about Fintan Kilbride's work
to bring medical supplies to Third World Countries.
With the support of his wife, Kenise, in his early seventies, retired
from teaching, longtime friend of Corpus Canada, Fintan Kilbride continues
to work hard to doing that. But Fintan has added a whole new dimension
to his apostolate/service. With the help of the Rotary Club of Toronto,
Leaside, he has co-ordinated efforts and raised hundreds of thousands
of dollars for relief work in Nicaragua.
The October '99 issue of "The Rotarian" features his delivery
of three buses to Managua. These buses deliver hot lunches in the city's
vast barrio district, and then they transport doctors and nurses to public
health clinics. Other tasks that Fintan is undertaking is bringing fresh
water systems to communities with polluted water.
Fintan's recent efforts have been with "Free The Children", the Craig
Kielburger Foundation www.freethechildren.org.
Last October, Kielburger was guest on the Oprah Winfrey TV show.
Kielburger told the story of fund-raising to build schools in hurricane-ravaged
Nicaragua. Oprah said "I want to build one hundred of these schools."
Recently, Fintan wrote to Jake and Emil Katurna:
I am delighted to keep in touch. In the past ten months, I have with
FTC helped to build seven small schools in Nicaragua. Now Oprah wants us
to build 100 in different countries. The money is there for sure; it's
just a matter of identifying suitable needy communities with trustworthy
supervisors of the work. Perhaps some of our Corpus members can suggest
such sites and people.
I often think of my dear friends in Corpus Canada. I substitute teach
every day that I am here in different schools. It's a whole new apostolate.
I love it. The kids like to think how their lives can make a difference.
Fondly, Fintan
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