Provide the gift of warmth to children during cold winter months.
Families struggling to make ends meet use their scarce resources to meet the most basic needs and cannot always afford the vital essential of a new winter coat.
The goal of the Coats for Kids program is to ensure that no child in North America goes without a coat during the winter season.
Through the dedication of councils across the United States and Canada, hundreds of thousands of new winter coats have been distributed to children
since program inception. Since 2015, Patuxent Council has raised funds to purchase and distribute more than 400 new winter coats to children in the Laurel area.
Thousands of families count on SHARE each month for affordable, nutritious groceries that are sold through volunteer-run locations throughout
the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan area. Patuxent Council runs a SHARE Host Site and distributes groceries to SHARE clients and to several area food pantries on a monthly basis. More than 40,000 pounds of food move through our Host Site every year!
Since the mid-1990s, Patuxent Council's signature fundraising effort has been running a concessions stand at UMD football and basketball games. As of 2019, this effort yields approximately $20,000 per year, about half of which the Council retains to support its programming efforts. The remaining proceeds are paid out to volunteers from local Boy Scout Troops, American Heritage Girl Troops, and other local groups who are invited to work with the Council to raise funds for their organizations.
At Christmas, we experience the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gift giving is a wonderful, meaningful part of that experience.
Unfortunately, severe poverty deprives many children in developing countries of this joy. Their parents are too poor to provide even one simple Christmas present.
Through Cross Catholic Outreach’s Box of Joy program, you can ensure these children are not deprived of Christmas blessings this year.
By packing a Christmas gift box and sponsoring the cost of its shipment, you can deliver a Box of Joy to a child overseas who would otherwise receive nothing.
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Each year, St. Mary of the Mills hosts the annual Winterhaven Shelter for a week at the end of December. Brother Knights volunteer their time setting up the shelter, staffing overnight shifts during the week, and by helping to break down and move the shelter to the next location at week's end. The Council also volunteers to cook and serve dinner to the shelter clients one night during the week.
Each winter, Patuxent Council invites the youth of St. Mary of the Mills to participate in a Basketball Free Throw Championship. Each participant shoots 15 free throws, with the highest scoring competitors in each age group advancing to a District-level competition. District winner then advance to the Maryland State Council competition.