Parish charity donates filled handbags to women, teens

Four years ago in Green, Ohio, Lynda Dodson was battling cancer.

However, rather than focus on her own condition, Dodson and her younger sister, Cindy Rutherford, decided to find a way to help other women going through their own challenges. Her goal was to give women some basic necessities, but also some little “feel good” items that needy women might not normally be able to buy for themselves such as a nicer handbag and make up. And so, “Lynda’s Helping Handbags” was created.

Word of mouth and social media helped to make the effort a great success. Donations came from across the country. In 2017, a unique offshoot of “Lynda’s Helping Handbags” was established at St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Pittstown.

Donna Gallagher, a member of the parish’s Altar Rosary Society, had been introduced to LHH by Rutherford, her childhood friend, in Green. The Rosary Society is a group of about 30 to 40 women who pray the rosary together, but also meet to hear speakers and try to serve the parish and local community.

Service projects include donating Thanksgiving baskets to St. Phillip and James Parish, Phillipsburg, and organizing events such as coat drives for children, Christmas Giving Trees and bake sales. They took on the LHH project very enthusiastically, and member Gail Jacobsen volunteered to serve as co-chair with Gallagher.

At first, the project stayed mainly within the Society and there was a very generous response. As the project grew over the next two years, however, the Society began to reach out to the rest of the parish and then neighbors, family and friends. Noting that this project is just one of a number of efforts run by the Rosary Society, Gallagher and Jacobsen expressed appreciation and gratitude at the “very generous” response of the parish community.

Each fall, members of the ministry enjoy getting together to sort, clean and fill the new or gently-used handbags for women and teenagers with 10 to 12 donated items, as well as rosaries when available. They also add a tag to each one assuring the recipient of the thoughts and prayers of the Rosary Society and the text of the “Hail Mary.”

Since LHH was established at St. Catherine’s, the Rosary Society donated 222 filled handbags in 2017, 145 in 2018 and 236 in 2019. Gallagher said that while she initially was not certain the Rosary Society would have time for such an undertaking, LHH has been a “great experience” for both the beneficiaries and the women of the ministry.

She noted that “everyone has fun, and feels good about it” when they get together to work on the project, and making the deliveries to the recipient 

organizations is extremely rewarding.

Among the local organizations that have benefitted from the donations in the past three years are The Women’s Transition Center, Phillipsburg; The Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Warren County; the  Flemington-based SAFE in Hunterdon; Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, Bronx, N.Y.; and Livingston Philanthropies, Newark, which provide necessities such as food and clothing to “the poor, homeless and disenfranchised,” according to its founder, Jeff Friedman.

“Once we met serendipitously and I learned about the wonderful work of Livingston Philanthropies, we wanted to donate right away,” Gallagher said.

“This could be the beginning of a wonderful association,” said, Friedman, who described the work of “Lynda’s Helping Handbags” as “wonderful.”

Father Jose Felix Ortega, administrator, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish had similar feelings. “We minister to the spiritual and, at times, material needs of our parishioners,” he said. “The handbags are donated to the women of the parish, most of whom are of modest means, taking care of their families and doing without the extras in life. Their first priority is their family and they would buy whatever it is that their family needs while placing themselves last. Receiving a handbag is, in a way, a recompense from above for all the sacrifices they make.

“Our parishioners truly appreciate the bags and, most importantly, the thoughtfulness and care that the Rosary Society puts into sending them.”