A Catholic church in Uvalde, Texas, has opened a new on-site counseling facility to provide ongoing healing and support for the community in the wake of the 2022 elementary school shooting. Source: OSV News.
Robb Elementary School held a grand opening ceremony and celebration on September 6th, attended by key community partners and leaders. The facility’s dedication took place immediately following a community-wide mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
“We are honored to support this new healing center in the Uvalde community,” Father Jack Wall, president of Catholic Extension, said in a statement.
“We pray that it will be a source of hope for those who receive services here, a reminder that they are neither alone nor abandoned in their search for peace.”
Catholic Extension, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization, was founded in 1905 to build communities of Catholic faith in underserved areas. According to a news release, Catholic Extension “has a long and rich history with the Uvalde community, helping to build Sacred Heart Catholic Church and School more than a century ago and providing funding for this facility.”
The counseling facilities will be available to the entire Uvalde area “as families and individuals continue the long healing process” following the shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers and “left countless bystanders, families and friends of the victims physically and emotionally wounded.”
Catholic Extension said Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde has “played a vital role” in helping the area recover since the shooting.
So far, the Chicago-based nonprofit has awarded full scholarships to 30 Robb Elementary students who want to transfer to Sacred Heart Elementary in 2022 as a means of healing.
Additionally, Catholic Extension has partnered with the Uvalde-based Theresian Sisters to run camps for children, therapy programs and outreach to families in Uvalde.
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Uvalde Church Opens New Counseling Facility (OSV News)