Cathal Temple is preparing to take part once more in TriAthlone next weekend along with some 2,500 other competitors.
Cathal, who is commercial director of Temple Printing Company, raised €2,750 last year for Athlone Hospital Patient Comfort Fund. This year, Cathal is hoping to raise funds to help Fr PJ Hughe's work in Ecuador. Fr Hughes is working some 10 miles from the city of Guayaquil with another priest from Australia.
"The parish is new and covers a huge area, like going from Ferbane to Athlone,” explains Fr Hughes. “There is a lot of work to be done here and money from home goes a long way, no matter how little. I am working with the other priest in building up the parish. The school needs three more classrooms; we have to build a stone church; we hope to erect a building with about three rooms for the community where they can come to learn how to read and write and develop skills with arts and crafts, hair dressing, and other skills that would be beneficial to helping them in the future.
“We sponsor certain young people who have ability so that they will get the chance to go to secondary college and be educated. It costs $45 a month to do this,” he added.
Father PJ from St Mary's joined with the Missionary Society of St James the Apostle some months ago. The Society is an international organisation of diocesan missionary priests who volunteer a minimum of five years of their priestly lives to service in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
If you would like to sponsor/make a donation/sell a line to help Father Hughes you can contact Cathal on (090 ) 6472390 or email [email protected].
