Expectations for a flood of award nominations

“More than ever.” That’s the way the director of Stewardship and Communications characterizes her expectation for the number of responses her office will receive for the annual Stewardship Award nominations.

“We had so many fantastic people who came up with such creative ways to help others during Harvey that we think we should have bunches of submissions for the nominations for the 2016-18 awards. And though the deadline for the individual awards is June 19 we are already getting submissions,” Letty Lanza said.

“I know of people who used their bass boats to rescue. My neighbor let us use his pool water to flush when Beaumont’s water pumps broke. Hundreds of acts of Stewardship during those days,” she continued.

The Diocesan Stewardship Council has scheduled its annual award ceremony for July 15. Last year’s award ceremony was cancelled because of Tropical Storm Harvey’s catastrophic flooding. Because of the cancelation of that event, Council will consider exceptional acts of Stewardship that occurred between July 2016 and June 2018 for both the individual Msgr. Richard DeStefano Faithful Steward Award and the Bishop Curtis Guillory Parish Award.

“My only concern this time is that parishes may be hesitant to self- nominate for the parish award since they may have had an interruption in ministry programs or a step back in offertory because of Harvey. But what I hope they will see is the giant leap forward they took on their Stewardship journey because of all that their parish did for others during those days after the storm,” Lanza said.

Lanza wanted to remind parishes that a monetary gift accompanies the Bishop Curtis Guillory Award. Pastors have been sent guidelines for the self-nomination for that award which is due July 2.

Forms for the individual award appear on pages 8 and 9.
The form, in English and in Spanish, can also be found on the diocesan website at www.setxcatholic.org.