Rosaries help two BEHS teens fund senior trip to Rome
CHARLESTON — Mary Helen Frick and her friend Bridgette Kelleher have
found a unique way to take a senior trip, by making and selling
rosaries.
The two Bishop England High School students are planning to join their
classmates on a pilgrimage to Rome.
The trip begins March 24 and costs $2,100. Students are required to
bring their own spending money. The 17-year-olds’ parents are helping
them with the trip expenses, but the teens will supplement this help
with the money they earn.
Mary Helen is paying for half of her trip with money she makes working
in a part-time job as an administrative assistant in an orthodontist’s
office.
Knowing those funds wouldn’t be enough, Mary Helen spoke with her
theology teacher, Tom Provost, who is leading the trip. He
suggested the teens try making rosaries. She and Bridgette decided to
make them with beads they bought locally and with crosses ordered on
the Internet.
The two girls have approached the project with entrepreneurial
en-thusiasm. Mary Helen has already earned more than $600 from her
handiwork. She started off with a craft fair at her parish, Blessed
Sacrament. Her mother is an assistant at the school and showed the
rosaries to teachers, who placed orders.
Bridgette said she hopes to sell more, too, and is busy making rosaries
to meet the demand.
The two teenagers sell the large rosaries for $15, and the small finger
rosaries for $2. To place an order, e-mail RosariesforRome@yahoo.com.
Published Feb. 3, 2005
The Catholic Miscellany