NORTH TONAWANDA: Church’s donation finds new life in Nicaragua
By Barbara Tucker
E-mail Barb
The Tonawanda News
When Saint Joseph’s Church in North Tonawanda was closed last year, the question arose on what to do with church items, such as pews and magnificent stained glass windows.
“The problem was brought up at the parish council meeting,” Rev. Louis Dolonic, former pastor of the now closed church, said.
“We asked for ideas because no church that closed knew what to do with the items,” he said.
In the meantime, Ann Marie Zon, founder and director of the Nicaragua Mission Project which sends 42 truck loads of donated items to Nicaragua each year, stopped by the church to collect donated clothes and other items.
Dolonic said he casually asked her if she could use stained glass windows.
“Absolutely,” was Zon’s reply.
“The most phenomenal things Father Louie (Dolonic) offered was not only the beautiful stained glass windows, but the church benches as well,” Zon said. “We couldn’t believe what was being offered and what such a donation would mean to those in Nicaragua.”
Zon noted that there aren’t any stained glass windows in the churches in Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America.
Dolonic contacted the families of those who donated the church windows for permission to send them to Nicaragua.
“They were all pleased that the windows would benefit the lives of other people,” Dolonic said.
The pastor then contacted the company that put the windows in and they agreed to take down the windows, crate them in wooden boxes, even drawing a schematic for the Nicaraguan workers.
“St. Joseph’s paid for the crating and the football team from Cardinal O’Hara High School came and loaded the crates,” Dolonic recalled.
Zon organized boys from Canisius High School to unscrew all the benches from the church floor.
“With everything that was being shipped, it was a truck full,” Zon said.
Within a month, St. Joseph’s donations were in the Shrine of Jesus de Rescate in Popoyuapa, Nicaragua, where according to Zon, thousands of people come every year and hundreds every week.
“The people here (in Nicaragua) marvel at such a donation, from the enormity of the generosity to how perfectly the gifts fit into the Shrine,” Monsignor Alfonso Alvarado Lugo, pastor of the church, said. “The benches hold 650 people every Sunday for Mass.”
“There is no way to express adequate thanks to Father Louie and the parishioners of St. Joseph’s,” Zon said. “So thanks are from every person using the benches, in every ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ uttered when the windows are seen and admired.”
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