Author: Kevin Wondrash

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Kevin Wondrash

Edgewood student relief fund

MADISON — Sr. Mary Ellen Gevelinger, interim president of Edgewood College, announced the Presidential Relief Fund on April 8.

“Today, at my request, the Board of Trustees approved a $500,000 student relief fund,” Sister Mary Ellen said.

“This provides immediate cash relief for students. So many service industries that our students rely on for employment are affected. We are fortunate to be able to offer a program that will provide some support for our students to help with basic needs like groceries, rent, and unexpected expenses.”

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Kevin Wondrash

St. Vincent de Paul serving during pandemic

MADISON — Adapting how it serves, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul-Madison continues to help thousands of Dane County neighbors in need each week, even in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the Society’s Madison service center, the large and busy St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry and Wisconsin’s only free pharmacy have both adapted to observe guidelines to help protect the health of all involved while assisting large numbers of people coping with poverty.

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Kevin Wondrash

A walk to retreat, reflect, and remember

‘[Assistant] Editor’s View’
Kevin Wondrash

Those who know me well know that I like to walk. I’ll try to walk the one mile to Mass every weekend (when it is being celebrated publicly), and I’ll occasionally walk the 2.5 miles to work from my apartment on Madison’s west side.

If it were up to me, I’d walk everywhere instead of driving.

In my mind, unless you’re Richard Petty or A.J. Foyt, nothing good comes from driving.

Other than for practical reasons, I’ll also go for walks to satisfy the clichéd check boxes such as “getting out of the house” and “getting my steps in”.

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Kevin Wondrash

Mass, Eucharistic Procession during solemnity, pandemic

MADISON — In a nearly empty oratory at Holy Name Heights in Madison, Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison celebrated Mass on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.

With concelebrant Vicar General Msgr. James Bartylla, seminarian Luis Reyes as server, and Office of Worship Director Dr. Patrick Gorman as cantor, the Mass was livestreamed via Facebook and YouTube and viewable to the public, unable to attend Masses during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Kevin Wondrash

St. Ambrose Academy shifts to distance learning

MADISON — St. Ambrose Academy (SAA), along with schools around the world, has, practically overnight, become a distance learning school.

The academy closed its doors on March 13 as students hunkered down with their families in the safety of their homes against the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic.

But, said Executive Director Joan Carey, “thanks to a heroic, all-hands-on-deck effort, St. Ambrose Academy reopened its door the following week over the Internet, where we continue to provide the best in education and classical learning for families.”

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Kevin Wondrash

Unexpected homeschooling during COVID-19

Meg Matenaer

I am a homeschooling dropout. Seven years ago when my oldest was five, we decided that we would homeschool her.

Eight weeks later when the reality was so depressingly different from the ideal I had painted in my mind, she was enrolled in an amazing Catholic school and we’ve never looked back.

Until yesterday.

After it was clear that there would be an imminent shutdown of the schools in Madison, our heroic teachers and principals in only a matter of days mobilized, creating systems to keep learning going at home.

They sent home computers, devised ways to stream lectures and collect homework, spent hours photocopying and recording videos, and packed up the students’ belongings, distributing them at assigned times to parents in the parking lot.

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Kevin Wondrash

Holy Week: Celebrating the strangest things

With the coronavirus, this year’s Holy Week will be strange and different.

We will not be gathering in churches in large numbers. We will not receive the Eucharist. We will not be joining family and friends for Easter.

We all feel the vulnerability and struggle of this painful moment, wondering what the future holds for us, especially the elderly, ill, and unemployed.

Holy Week: why ‘strange’?

But even in a normal year, Holy Week is the strangest thing.

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