Waspam Partnership

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish

602 Everglade Drive
Madison, WI 53717
608 833-2600

Updated Aug. 18, 2007

2007 Waspam Collection
August 25/26 - September 9/10
Unopened over-the-counter medicines and personal care products, sporting goods, cloth, fabric, sewing supplies, tools, sheets, pillow cases, towels, school supplies, peanut butter.
New or very good condition only, please!
Click here for a complete list of items being collected.

Waspam Partnership

The parish of San Rafael serves the town of Waspam itself and people living on or near the Río Coco, the river which separates Nicaragua and Honduras. This is a total of about 200,000 people spread over 250 miles of river communities, many of which can only be reached by boat.

The area has been hit hard in the last few years by severe storms, which caused serious flooding and a plague of rats, which wiped out not only food supplies on hand but also the seeds for next year's crop.

The Waspam-St. Thomas Aquinas partnership began in the early 1990s and has grown over the years. Fr. Floriano and Sr. Rose from Waspam have made several visits to Madison, most recently in July, 2006, and in the summer of 2004 a group from Madison was able to visit San Rafael. Every year in the late summer or early fall, St. Thomas holds a collection of the supplies that the people in Waspam need most.
Recent donations from St. Thomas to Waspam have helped purchase books and Bibles for the school children and a boat for the parish to transport priests, lay ministers, and supplies between Waspam proper and the remote communities. Because there are so many people and so few priests, lay ministers have a heavy responsibility, and good training for them is essential. The boat enables the parish to send catechists to communities along the river and to bring people from the villages into the city for classes. The boat is named "Misión Católica Kupia Kumi." Kupia Kumi means "of One Heart" in the local Miskito language.