By Kurt Jensen
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — March for Life hospitality at St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill Catholic
Church starts at 4 a.m.
That’s
when the first volunteers arrive at the basement parish hall to fire up 20
rented urns for coffee, tea and hot chocolate. It takes an hour for the 100-cup
urns to brew the coffee, and at 4:20, the volunteers take delivery of 180 dozen
doughnuts from a bakery in suburban Virginia.
Seems
as precise as a military operation. But it’s not really run that way, said
Suzanne O’Connor, an office assistant in the rectory. “Everyone just
pitches in. Anyone you ask to do something, they just do it. It’s a great
thing.”
Plus,
the arriving marchers usually bring extra goodies to share. “Stuff like
cases of water and cookies,” O’Connor told Catholic News Service. “One
year, someone brought 2,000 candy canes.”
More
than 50 volunteers, coordinated by Molly Pannell and Susan Petraglia, have to
stay on their toes, since the first of many buses pulls in at 5 a.m.
That’s
sometimes difficult, since St. Peter’s is wedged into a residential
neighborhood with narrow streets on three sides, and the Madison Building of
the Library of Congress on the other, so U.S. Capitol Police sometimes tell the
drivers to offload their passengers blocks away.
The
first Mass of the day, celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Martin D. Holley of Washington,
began at 7, followed by special Masses at 8:30, 10 and 11 before the next
regular Mass at 12:10.
Despite
the impending blizzard Jan. 22, O’Connor said the volunteers expected to greet
busloads from Illinois, New Jersey, Florida, Alabama, and from as far away as
North Dakota, as well as parishioners from the Washington area who arrive at
the nearby Metro station and walk over.
Many
other parishes in the nation’s capital offer refreshments and a warm place to
sit before the pre-march rally — this year at the Washington Monument —
begins, but St. Peter’s, just two blocks from the Supreme Court, gets them both
arriving early in the morning and straggling in after the march up Constitution
Avenue to the East Front of the Capitol. Chairs and tables aren’t put away and
the floor given a final mopping until after 6:30. p.m.
O’Connor
says the march doesn’t really strain the parish’s resources except in one
respect. “This is an old building that doesn’t have very many electrical
outlets. So when people want to recharge their phones, we always have to tell a
few of them to wait their turn.”
In
the afternoon, the parish hall resembles a bus terminal, with announcements of
what group is leaving when. “We’ve not had anyone left behind yet,” O’Connor
says. “Pretty much everyone leaves happy.”
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